


Time's Transients

by thisiszircon



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Post-Series, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 02:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 58,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11282262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: The Transient Beings have escaped from their prison in the past.  Through a sequence of distractions and deceptions they have imprisoned Sapphire and Steel in an impossible cafe, adrift in the lonely expanses of space.The universe is about to become the plaything of the Transients: somewhere to indulge their insatiable capacity for cruelty and malevolence.  All life is at risk, now.Fortunately, there is still a glimmer of hope:  aSilverglimmer.





	1. Prologue

Four figures met in a circular chamber.  Their words were hushed, their gestures furtive.  They grouped together, speaking with quiet urgency as their plan was finalised.

Three of the figures were similar in appearance.  At first glance they seemed to be swathed in dark, hooded cloaks, the colour of old, dried blood.  Further inspection revealed that the cloaks were not so much a garment as a part of the self.  They rippled in and out of the chamber like ghosts, surrounding the fourth member of the cabal: a figure more solid and man-shaped.

Words which were not quite spoken echoed between them.

From the man: [Is it time, then?]

[Yes, it is time.]

[There's nothing more to discuss?]

[Nothing.]  When the man gave no response, the ghostly figure added, [We cannot help you with this final step.]

[I understand.]

The man threw his shoulders back and raised his hands.  As the three others watched, his fingertips made contact with the sides of his head.  A moment of tension, hesitation, then he glanced around.

[I'm afraid.]  The statement was calmly made, but its truth was clear in the man's eyes.

Two of the ghosts seemed to bristle impatiently, but the third silenced them with what could have been a glance.

[We're all afraid,] it replied.  [Afraid for you and for ourselves and for everything.  But you have a choice.  You can stop this right now.  No one will prevent you leaving the chamber.]

The man's hands fell to his sides; the gesture was one of helplessness.  [There is no choice.  My fear changes nothing.]

There was no overt response to his words, but three ghostly heads bowed in what might have been sympathy and understanding.  Perhaps the man sensed this because it seemed to calm him.

Once again he lifted his fingers to his head.  [Are you ready?] he asked.

[We are ready.]

The man gritted his teeth and his eyes flashed with some hidden power.  There was a pulse of light, and he cried out in agony before his hands fell impotently to his sides and his legs buckled.

His unconscious body was prevented from crumpling by the three figures, whose focused efforts lowered it gently to the ground.  They waited for long seconds as the echo from the man's cry died away.

[Is it done?] one of the figures asked.

[Only time itself can answer that question.]

As they watched, the man's body faded from the chamber until the three were alone.  They lingered a moment more, but there was nothing further to say or do.  Each ghost rippled out of existence until the chamber was empty.

~~~


	2. Anywhere but Here

A man and a woman stood before the window in a brightly coloured café.  Their view consisted not of a road, nor a car park, nor any earthbound location, but of bright pinprick stars and dark, empty vacuum: the infinity of space.

They were surrounded by this void, with no means of leaving the small pocket which sustained them.  They had been lured, trapped and finally imprisoned.  The last, mocking words of their enemy had chilled them to the bone:

_"This place is nowhere.  And it's forever."_

The two of them had stood there for a long time, though whether time had meaning in this place was, of course, debatable.  The room was everything now; it defined all boundaries.  A room, a window, and the stars and the vacuum.

The woman's name was Sapphire.  She was dressed in blue and her blonde hair teased her shoulders.  She was slim and tall – slightly taller than the man, in the heels she wore – and breathtakingly beautiful.  Though her gaze drifted across the empty vista before them, her eyes remained focused.  She was waiting and watching and thinking.

Her companion's name was Steel.  Where Sapphire was a flash of colour, he was grey: strong and sharp and well-cut, but still grey.  His straight fair hair surrounded a handsome face with expressive eyes, though they lacked the focus of his colleague's.  His chin was dropping to his throat.  His shoulders slumped.

Steel's despair was palpable to Sapphire.  She didn't need to see it in his expression and his posture to know it was there.  With his wings pinned back beneath this suffocating frame of perpetual nothingness, hope had deserted.  Steel was having difficulty quelling the waves of panic.

She knew this, because their minds were connected.  It was sometimes difficult for Sapphire to know where her thoughts ended and Steel's began.

Whilst Steel's anguish niggled at her senses, Sapphire attempted to remain calm by backtracking over every event, every action, every word which had led up to their imprisonment.  Shutting out the claustrophobia by forcing her thoughts to dwell elsewhere, she looked for the clue: that one element which would reveal a means of escape.  Unlike her colleague, she believed it existed somewhere.

She worked through the recent history.  The Transient Beings had intercepted their usual line of communication and transmitted rogue instructions.  They'd set up a small pocket of reality and enticed Sapphire and her partner to this destination.  Sapphire hadn't realised it was a trap until it was far too late.

So there they had found themselves, supposedly at a roadside service station, awaiting some kind of time-break.  The trap had been sprung around them as soon as the time irregularities had started.  Despite her own disquiet about the scenario, Sapphire had been drawn into investigating the fluctuations which, she now realised, had been a side-effect: a distraction.

Sapphire shook her head, attempting to clear her thoughts.  She was unused to the sluggishness with which her mind was functioning and, with a twinge of fear, wondered whether the slow loss of her faculties was a symptom of the place they were now in.  Total destruction seemed preferable to the prospect of losing her mind.  She glanced at Steel, seeking reassurance in the familiar presence of her closest ally, but his eyes were glazed in a manner she had never seen before.  She didn't like it and turned away, shivering.

Sapphire went back to reviewing the sequence of events.  After the fluctuations, the shadows had started to arrive.  That had given them something else to investigate.  They'd been so busy fitting the new arrivals into their theories that they hadn't noticed the enemy massing around them, closing in ready for the final strike.

They'd looked at the car.  It had been important, she recalled.  A lovely old car, shining silver...

Silver?

And suddenly she _knew_ there was something she'd overlooked.  With a conscious wrench of effort, she broke down a wall in her mind: a mental wall which was not of her own building.  Pausing only long enough to feel sickened by the idea of something manipulating her private thoughts, Sapphire accessed a memory which had hitherto been denied.

"Silver!"

Her clear voice cut through the thick silence.  Her sluggishness began to ebb, as though she stirred from a daydream.  She turned to Steel again, pleased to note that his face now wore a puzzled frown.  Good.  Anything was better than that dull defeat.

"Steel, can you remember?  I know it's strange, it's like trying to remember something from eons ago, not recent at all.  But don't you remember – there were _three_ of us."

"I-I remember," Steel replied falteringly.  "Silver.  Silver should be here too."

He looked over his shoulder, examining the impossible café as if he expected to find Silver sitting at one of the tables, watching them with his trademark expression of aloof amusement while he waited for them to catch up with everything.

But Silver was not there, of course.  That was rather the point.

"Where is he?" Steel demanded.  "I mean, we weren't standing so very far apart, were we?  He should be right here.  He should have arrived with us."  He narrowed his eyes, as though the clarification he sought might be visible.

For a few seconds Sapphire could sense Steel's mind working frantically through the same kind of mental haze as she'd identified in her own, before her partner exploded with frustration and spun into the room, venting his fury on one of the nearby tables which, up until that moment, had been bolted to the floor.  He tore it from its brackets and hurled it to one side with a cry of anger.

And in spite of the danger they were in, Sapphire saw the humorous side.  All their fellow Operators spoke of Steel's cold reserve.  It was renowned within their network; Steel was considered emotionless, uncaring, frigid even.  And Sapphire knew, as nobody else did, that this carefully cultivated image was simply that: no more than an image.

She continued to smile even after Steel noticed her reaction.  Sapphire watched his anger fall away from him and felt rewarded by his slow, self-deprecating grin.  He glanced at his hands, red lesions from his violence shrinking back into the skin.  The torn fixings lay twisted and mangled on the floor.  He stepped around the damage and went to sit at one of the tables which remained intact, lacing his fingers neatly to demonstrate his return to self-control.

"I don't know my own strength, sometimes," he said, as Sapphire came to sit beside him.  He glanced at her as she took his hands in hers.  "Sorry."

He squeezed her hands then pulled away self-consciously.  Sapphire's amusement ramped up another notch.

"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" he accused after a moment.

"Of course I am.  I'm in the privileged position of being the only Operator who can get away with it.  But if your little tantrum is over, I think we should turn our minds to the problem at hand.  Agreed?"

Steel nodded, massaging the sides of his head.  "They've done something to us.  To our memories.  When did they get access to our minds?"  He shook his head at his own thoughts.  "Surely you would have felt a probe, even if I didn't?"

"I'm certain that it didn't happen at the service station.  Like you say, I'd have known.  So it must have been sometime between leaving there and arriving here."  She thought it through.  "There is only one explanation that makes sense.  Those devices, the travel games – I think we must have been rendered temporarily unconscious when they were used."

"Yes," Steel said.  "I certainly don't remember anything between the standoff at the barrier and stepping through the door to this place."

"Neither do I.  It's as if I blacked out for a time."

"And we were both very disoriented when we arrived," he added.  "Very well – let's assume you're right.  But they can't have been anticipating _two_ devices, because it was Silver who duplicated the original.  If the devices are truly as dangerous as this theory indicates, the last thing they'd have wanted is for us to be armed with the same weapon."

"Indeed," Sapphire agreed.  "Equality on the battlefield?  Very unsporting."

Steel smiled a micro-smile at her quip.  "All of which suggests to me that their plan had to change, and change fast, to accommodate the new variables," he said.  "Which could explain why they've tried to prevent us remembering certain things.  And why they didn't have too much time to do so – hence the lack of success."

Sapphire tilted her head in thought.  "Is that what you really believe, or what you're hoping?"

"Hoping," he conceded.  "I like the idea that their plan isn't going all that smoothly."  He sighed.  "If I'm wrong, it might be that this very conversation we're having now has been predicted.  Pre-programmed."

Sapphire tried not to cringe at the idea.  "We should avoid thinking like that.  We'll go insane if we start trying to second and third guess ourselves all the time."

"Fair point," he said.

"And anyway, they've got us.  We are, in effect, trapped – exactly where they want us.  I think it's unlikely that their immediate plans extend much beyond this-this...incapacitation."  She watched her partner raise a dubious eyebrow at her choice of word and shrugged at him.  "So in the meantime, let's work through the problem the same way we always do."

"All right," Steel replied.  "We'll start at the very beginning."

~~~

Silver was not in an impossible café.  Nor was he scrambling about in Earth's prehistory.  Nor had he been atomised – or something equally unpleasant – by the coming together of two frighteningly powerful devices that could apparently control and manipulate multiple dimensions.

Silver was, in fact, home.

A fraction of a second before his two colleagues had been encompassed by a flash of space-warping energy, he'd activated a device which had been in his possession from the very start of the recent case.  Moments later he found himself back at the Hub: the realm all Operators and Specialists called home.

Specifically, he arrived in front of the same authority which had sent him on his recent mission.

He got his bearings quickly, shrugging off a sense of disorientation which he knew he had no time to indulge.  Silver acknowledged his superiors, the three of them seated with the appropriate pomp in alcoves around the chamber.  As usual, their faces were indiscernible and their forms occasionally crackled in and out of this time and place.  These beings spent much of their life in the higher dimensions; it took effort to anchor themselves to the relatively mundane dimensions of the Hub.

"You were right, of course," he announced without preamble.  "It is the Transient Beings.  And our people are in danger; we have to do something.  They'd be finished if you hadn't foreseen the plan and given me the chance to–"

The central figure interrupted.  "Tell us all the details from the start, but first we need to know – were Sapphire and Steel aware of why you were at the location?"

"Oh.  Um – Sapphire was uncomfortable about my presence, I suppose.  She couldn't see the reason.  But she only really shared that with Steel."  He frowned as he remembered.  "I only noticed it because I was looking for it."

"What about the Transients?"

"Well, obviously they couldn't ask me why I was there without giving their game away.  So I winged it.  You know, acted all protective of Sapphire, flirted a bit?  I think they were persuaded that I was there because I was drawn to her."

"Easy enough to believe of you, Silver," said the figure to the left with a rare show of humour.  "But your silver tongue is wagged in vain.  Sapphire and Steel have a communion of their own, and it doesn't allow for others.  They're our...let's say they're our most _effective_ partnership because of it."

"Yes, let's say that.  And let's hope we can keep talking about them in the present tense," returned Silver, slightly put out that his as yet unsuccessful attempts to rekindle a romance with Sapphire were such common knowledge.

"Let us proceed under the assumption that the Transients have only just become concerned about your involvement, then," said the central figure.  "This whole operation is too important to fail."  The figure gave a shudder.  "With the Transients free, no law will be safe."

Silver seated himself on the chair which materialised in the centre of the chamber and addressed the room.

"Well, then – here goes.  I arrived before our two, as we planned..."

~~~

Sapphire and Steel discussed the case from start to finish.  On no other occasion did they encounter a mind block.  This was reassuring, but it did not necessarily mean there weren't any more.  Only after every detail that could be remembered had been retrieved, and Steel seemed to be as exhausted as Sapphire herself felt, did they rest.

"I can't remember the last time I felt so tired, can you?" she murmured, as uncharacteristic lethargy swept over her.

"No, I can't," came the reply.  "I don't usually require rest, certainly not while on assignment.  This worries me, Sapphire."

"In what way?"

"Would you agree that this fatigue is unnatural?  It's being inflicted upon us."

"Yes.  It's not a natural tiredness."

"Well why bother?  The fact remains that we're trapped."  Steel glanced irritably at the walls and ceiling, as though a pointed stare might obliterate their cage.  "In fact," he went on, "it seems rather telling to me that we're still alive.  We may be incapacitated, like you said, but this place might sustain us more or less indefinitely.  I mean, there's no sign the oxygen levels are depleting, there's a comfortable temperature–"

"You're right, it is telling.  Any theories?"

Steel sighed through his exhaustion.  "Cruelty, perhaps?  The old chestnut of wanting your enemies alive and suffering rather than dead?"

As he spoke the words, Sapphire saw Steel shiver, and his trepidation reminded her just how frightened she was.  Fear was another enemy right now, forcing them away from logic and control and, ultimately, away from a solution to this predicament.  She clamped down on her dread and made sure that her reply sounded calm and steady; Steel needed her mental strength at this moment.

"That sounds plausible," she said.  "The Transient Beings have never been noted for their philanthropy."

Steel expanded on this train of thought.  "They've gone to a lot of trouble to ensnare us and put us here.  But we _are_ alive, and we retain some of our abilities."  [Like this one], he thought at Sapphire, and she nodded in recognition of their telepathic link.  "And we're together, which surely makes us more dangerous to them than separated."

"We can be sure of each other, then?" asked Sapphire.  "Remember the woman, the implants?  She seemed genuine enough, even to me, yet she was a tool, completely under the Transient Beings' influence.  Could they have done that to one of us?"

Steel frowned as he considered the possibility of an interloper, a doppelganger, then he discarded it with a shake of his head.  "We know each other too well.  I've known altered copies of you on previous occasions.  Remember the railway station?"  Sapphire nodded as a fleeting memory played a smile over her lips.  "Call it arrogance if you like, but I'm sure I'd know.  What about you?"

"I agree, but undo your collar anyway."

Sapphire's request seemed to startle Steel momentarily, before comprehension dawned over his features.  He unknotted his tie and undid the top buttons of his shirt, forcing it open so she could see that no controllers lurked below his collarbone.  It was by no means a foolproof method of verification, but it gave them a start.  Sapphire copied the gesture despite Steel's declaration of trust, going through the ritual very deliberately, as much for her own benefit as her partner's.

"We're sure of each other," he asserted, their eyes locked together.  Sapphire nodded at the statement, so Steel sat back and returned to his theories, frowning with the effort it took to resist the ever-growing fatigue.

"There are two reasons, as I see it, for keeping us alive here," he said.  "Either this is all they had planned for us and they've underestimated our ability to overcome the present difficulties.  Or this situation is a temporary measure – a holding cell – and they'll be back to finish us off."

Sapphire flinched, and Steel grasped her hand, this time with no sign of self-consciousness.  She was glad of the contact, and it renewed her optimism.  "But Steel, either way we have the opportunity to do something.  If it's the first reason, we've got as long as we can last here.  Otherwise we've got until they decide to return.  It's just a question of time."

"To do something, yes," he agreed.  "But what?"

~~~

"This woman," said the figure in the central alcove.  "You're sure she was human?"

"Well, spot analysis is more Sapphire's field than mine," replied Silver.  "But Sapphire never once seemed worried about the origins of the woman.  That was good enough for me."

"And the man?  This woman's supposed paramour?  Did Sapphire seem concerned about his origins?"

Silver considered, and realised that the authority had a point.  "The man was Transient.  Pure, original Transient Being – it had just taken the form of a human male.  And no, Sapphire voiced no concerns about the man while we thought we dealt with a couple of eloping lovers.  They must have done something to her sensory abilities."

There was a pause as the three figures conversed silently.  Silver was not privy to their discussion and fidgeted in his seat.  As he waited for a signal to continue his account, something caught his eye.  It was a flash of movement, not local to the room.  Interdimensional jet-stream, he mused, wondering why it had affected this chamber.

The figures returned their attention to him and indicated that he should continue.

"Well, after the first fluctuations Sapphire sensed the imminent arrival of the next player.  A scruffy fellow by the name of Johnny Jack..."

~~~

"Let's go back to Silver," Sapphire said, as she and Steel repeatedly probed each section of the puzzle, waiting to turn over the piece which would reveal the escape route.  Their tiredness had become intense: a heavy weight affecting them both mentally and physically.  She had no desire to sleep, however, for fear of not being able to wake.

"Can't get him out of your mind?" Steel replied curtly, fatigue revealing more than a hint of jealousy.

"You're very human sometimes, you know," Sapphire said, making her tone mild.

"Watch who you call human," Steel grumbled, before he looked at his companion and let chagrin replace his peevishness.  "Sorry.  What about Silver?"

"What could have happened to him?"

A pause, while they thought.

"Three possibilities," said Steel.  "He's either destroyed, imprisoned somewhere else, or free.  I think the first is unlikely, as they would have destroyed all of us at the same time if that was their aim.  I think the second is unlikely because it would waste energy and resource, building a separate prison to this one for Silver.  And, of course, Silver's technical abilities make him very difficult to incarcerate.  Which leaves the third option."

"But how could he be free?"  Sapphire tried to apply some logic to the hypothesis.  "I suppose he could have been turned loose, or he could have escaped, but both seem improbable."

"If they went to the trouble of luring him to the same spot as ourselves, they must have intended something for him."

"That always worried me though, Steel.  Why was he there?  We know why they wanted _us_ out of the way – we'd already turned them down.  Both of us, quite separately.  They know our allegiance is to each other, and they dislike our independence."

"The Transient Beings may not be the only ones," Steel said darkly.

Sapphire shot him a look that acknowledged the point, even as she decided to limit her concerns to one potential enemy at a time.  "The point is, Silver doesn't fit into that.  He's a resource we sometimes need.  A Specialist.  Nothing to do with our own partnership.  So why did they drag him into this?"

"All right, let's go back another step.  In order to get to that place, the service halt, Silver must have received instructions.  Assuming he received them from the same source we did, then he's either more important to the Transients than we can appreciate at this moment, or–"  He stopped abruptly, frowned at his clasped hands, then he took a deep breath.  "Or he's _part_ of the plot against us," Steel concluded, clearly unnerved by his attempt at logic.  He turned to her.  "You know him better than I do, Sapphire.  Could he be persuaded to join them?  To join the Transient Beings?"

Sapphire thought hard through the veil of her exhaustion.  "It's difficult to be unbiased regarding a close friend," she said, "but I really don't think so.  What do you think?"

Steel frowned.  "I respect Silver for his ability.  I find his manner slick and his prattle annoying, but I suppose that's just how he is.  It certainly doesn't make him a traitor.  Some probably find him charming."  With a shrug, he added, "I've wished for a silver tongue myself before now."

"Hmm.  There is another possibility, of course," Sapphire said.  "Silver wasn't brought to the service halt by the Transients.  He could have received his orders from some other source entirely."

~~~

"There were three Transients, and two of them were sacrificed?"  The central figure demanded confirmation and Silver nodded.  "And this all led up to the standoff, one box against the other?"

"If they hadn't lost the box and I hadn't copied it, it would have been very easy for them to locate all three of us, one by one, and trap us in any dimensional pocket of their design.  Or fling us to our deaths."  Silver paused a moment, just to let his superiors absorb that rather appalling notion.  "But you see, when they realised I'd seen the box and possibly duplicated it, they couldn't risk it.  They needed us all in one place – a place that was in front of _their_ box.  I'm quite convinced that the two who became victims of our box – sent back about two hundred million years, I believe – were sacrificed.  It was done on purpose.  Our confidence went up, you see.  One down, then two down – we really thought we could beat them.  Which is what the leader, the main man – or being, or whatever you want to call it – what it _wanted_ us to think, because we got all gung-ho and decided to finish it.  We went for the final confrontation and..."  Silver looked down at his fidgeting hands and forced them into stillness.  "And we allowed ourselves to become that single target."

"What would you have done differently?" asked the figure.

"We should have played it more defensively.  Kept away; worked on the barrier."

The central figure nodded.  "So the standoff was the point when you activated your extraction device?"

"That's right.  You see, I-I didn't know whether it would function from wherever they intended to send us.  Forgive my urge for self-preservation."  Silver had the grace to feel ashamed at his desertion.

"Not at all.  You've done well.  You survived; you're here; you've given us valuable intelligence."  The figure paused to consult with its peers.  "We need to know only one more thing, and then we can spring our own trap on the Transients.  Put them back where they belong."

"Yes?" asked Silver, his innate sense of optimism bubbling up inside him.

"Where are Sapphire and Steel now?"

~~~


	3. Somewhere In Between

The Transient Beings had four remaining associates now inhabiting, for convenience's sake, a former mental hospital.  By the present day – the nineteen-eighties, as it happened – this location had long since been abandoned to its rural corner of Cumbria.  The Transients had the power to create for themselves any living environment, to snatch a luxurious dwelling from anywhere, anytime, but 'incognito' was the mainstay of their plan.  Just as the hospital's patients had been tucked out of the way, removing their problems from plain sight, the Transients sequestered themselves behind the same cold, stone walls.

No undue attention would be drawn.  Their plan had to avoid premature discovery.  This was even more vital now, given the unforeseen element that had become involved.

The leader of this group, still in the form of the human male from the service station, had managed to contain its fury when 'settling in' the two Operators from the Hub to their distant new home.  It couldn't afford to show anything except cool satisfaction, for fear that the agents would notice its disquiet and use it to their advantage.  How it had exploded afterwards, though!  Any discrepancy within the plan could mean failure, and recapture, and returning to the incarceration of the past.  To be once again bound, restricted.  Suffocated.

The woman who had posed as the human male's lover – an effective means of convincing if ever the Transient had seen one – had applauded the cleverness in setting the snare for Sapphire and Steel.  She'd done well, given her daze at all that she'd witnessed.  She was still human, after all.  No need to worry about drawing any attention there, though.  The leader couldn't have kept her with them, even if it had claimed an ounce of desire to do so.  Which, of course, it could not.  Concepts such as love and loyalty were not anathema to a Transient Being, no matter what others might think, but this particular Transient did not waste those concepts on the lesser races.

So the woman had become another mystery from the past: the young wife who had deserted her husband and family in 1948 to run off with her enigmatic employer, never to be seen again.  At least, not until the nineteen-eighties uncovered her remarkably well-preserved corpse at the bottom of Over Water.

The leader smiled at the memory.  This was why it was in charge.  It was the cruellest of them all.  It had taken pleasure in breaking the woman's surprised and suddenly petrified face.

Such moments of pleasure had to be enjoyed where they came along, because too much remained uncertain.  For instance: the Transient still didn't know where Silver had gone.  Silver's disappearance could have been a mistake, a glitch in time.  Such things happened.  Yet the Transient Being's well cultivated suspicious nature, the paranoia that had kept it alive in the face of adversity before, had sounded alarm.  Silver might yet have pulled off an escape planned in advance.  And that would mean that _they_ were on to the leader and its associates.

The enemy.  The Hub.

In the harsh light of an unshaded electric bulb, the gathered Transients perched on chairs, bedframes and tables.  This mental review of recent events had fanned at the embers of the Transient leader's fury.  It wrapped its arms around its torso, almost parodying the straitjacket that was once all too familiar throughout this hospital, and it threw its head back and let loose a roar of anger: an inhuman, piercing, high-pitched shriek which disappeared over the boundaries of the human audible range.

The three others ignored their leader.  They were used to its volatile nature, and they were too tired to react in any case.  They'd used up valuable energy, firstly in creating and maintaining the service station, then the dimensional pocket in which their two prisoners would, even now, be sleeping a heavy and unnatural sleep.

Sapphire and Steel had yet to play their part.  Their presence had become imperative for the next stage of the plan to succeed.

Two casualties already.

But two who could be replaced.

~~~

"All these theories lead...to the same...conclusion," Steel slurred, so tired now that he could barely think.  "We need to cling...cling to the assumption...that Silver is free and...and he knows we're in trouble."

Sapphire looked as though she was trying to nod, but her head fell feebly against her chest.

"He'll be looking for us," Steel went on.  "We need...we need to help him.  Help him...pinpoint us."

"But we're nowhere," Sapphire mumbled.

Steel forced his head up and he looked in the direction of the window, at the barely moving constellations outside.  His body felt numb and weighty.  Every movement was as much of a strain as every coherent thought, but he tried.  He _strived_.  His brain reached for a connection he sensed was close, then – with a monumental wrench – he grasped the point which had been just beyond him.

"It's another block!" he stated, as clarity washed over him.  "We aren't 'nowhere', they just planted that in our heads."  A deeply drawn breath settled him.  "If we were 'nowhere', why are there stars?  Space?  Recognisable constellations?"  The fatigue was lifting from him, to be replaced by a perceptible sense of relief.  "Think about it.  The service halt was a pocket maintained by the Transients, separate from the human world, but it was tethered to a-a physical location.  Remember?  It was beside that road, with traffic we heard in those loops."  He scratched at his head and then dry-washed his face, the briskness of his gestures designed to stir him physically as his thoughts were stirring mentally.  "So this is just the same!"  He saw no flaw in his reasoning and grew in confidence.  "We're tethered to a time and place.  Sapphire, we must be in real space.  They've set us up in another pocket, probably in some deserted segment of the galaxy, safely out of the way.  But we're still in real space.  We're not out of reach!"

Steel squared his shoulders, having rekindled the glimmer of hope.  All the despondency of the last hours dissipated.  Sapphire had beaten the mind block regarding Silver, now he had beaten another one.  He was certain that the Transients hadn't anticipated they could do that.  Steel paused to consider how he and Sapphire had been slipping further and further into a self-induced coma as they tried to uncover the hidden memories.  He shuddered at how close they might have come to failure.

Sapphire hadn't responded to his revelation.  Why hadn't she caught on?  He turned to her, automatically reaching for her hand, but it was a leaden weight.  Similarly her head lolled, unconscious, chin dropped to her breastbone.  There was no sign of life.

The jubilation turned into panic.  Steel stood up so fast that the chair he'd occupied went skidding back across the room.  He moved around the corner of the table, then pulled Sapphire's sagging frame upwards, catching her head as it was flung back.  Her eyes were half closed with only white showing beneath the lids.  He spent a fruitless few moments shaking her by the shoulders.

They were so close to the answer, and now he had _this_ to deal with?

Steel turned the problem over rapidly in his mind.  If a mind block had been planted to provoke a comatose state, perhaps it might continue to close down sections of the mind.  It was imperative that he wake Sapphire before further damage was wrought.  Yet _how_ was he to wake her?  His mind drew a blank, he couldn't think straight and he finally gave in to the grief spreading its icy fingers over his chest.  He sank to his knees and gathered Sapphire to him, and he held on, despairing that they would come out of this nightmare intact.

~~~

Silver had been inside the chamber for what seemed like hours, going over the details again and again.  In order to find Sapphire and Steel they needed a clue: something that might provide the starting point for a search.  They needed to pin down the section of haystack in which the needle might be buried.

It was only when Jet appeared that the breakthrough was made.  While Jet could not have been more different in appearance to Sapphire – being petite in stature, with cropped hair and dark skin and an almost boyish figure – her abilities were similar nonetheless: she was a time-sensitive and strong telepath.  Jet placed her fingertips over Silver's temples, looked him deep in the eyes and took his memories back through the recent confrontation.  He began his account yet again, trying not to be too distracted by Jet's black-eyed beauty.  There was a twitch at the corner of her mouth that indicated that she was well aware of the direction of his thoughts, but he maintained his focus and kept talking.

He'd gone over these events so many times that they'd become almost absurd to him...right up until the moment when his review, accompanied by the memory-images in his mind courtesy of Jet's assistance, offered him something new.

He exclaimed, "That's it!"  They'd got to the moment when Sapphire had requested a peep into the device he had duplicated: a glimpse of the future.  "She saw space.  Stars.  They're not in some dimensional gulf; they'll be somewhere in real space.  We need the pattern of the constellation that she saw on the screen."

"You didn't see the screen," the central figure pointed out.  "Jet can't remember that for you."

Silver smiled at Jet.  "Sapphire has the most mesmerising eyes," Silver replied.

"Silver, this is not the time to indulge these schoolboy fantasies!  It is unbecoming to your age and your race."  The figures around the chamber bristled with frustration.

"You misunderstand," said Silver mildly.  "I can't help but look into her eyes whenever we're together.  I'm drawn – just like a schoolboy, if you insist."  He arched a brow at Jet.  "So here we have the moment when the lovely Sapphire is gazing at her future, and I'm gazing at her deep, blue, oh so _reflective_ eyes."

He allowed his idea to sink in.  Jet smiled her approval.  She rested her fingertips against Silver's temples once more, ignoring his lascivious wink before he conjured up the memory to which she lent clarity.  The image in his mind, of the dark centre of Sapphire's eyes and the stars which were reflected within them, was then projected into the centre of the chamber.

That image held steady, so Jet pulled away from Silver.  Those present gave the image their attention.

"For the record," Silver murmured to Jet, "you have rather mesmerising eyes yourself."

She rolled those eyes at him, but Silver had the sense that she was not displeased by the compliment.

~~~

Steel shrugged off his panic after a few moments and tried to pull himself together.  He was doing Sapphire no good kneeling here, clutching her as a bereaved lover might.  He let her go, then immediately reclaimed his hold as she slid in her chair, apparently ready to collapse in a heap like an under-stuffed toy.

Thinking he should make her comfortable, he stood, gathered her up and carried her to a more accessible bench at the other side of the café.  Here he laid her straight and drew a chair to sit beside her.

Only one thing might reach her now.  She needed something familiar to grasp on to, to remind her she was alive, to provide the catalyst with which she could break this spell herself.  So Steel began to speak to her: the intimate way, linking straight into her mind.

[Sapphire, you can hear me if you try.  So try.  Sapphire, I need you to wake up.]

No response from his first tentative attempt.

[Come on, Sapphire, where's that strength, that stubbornness?  If you're just going to lie there and give up then I don't know you half so well as I thought I did.]  Feeling self-conscious, as though wary of a hidden audience even though he knew they were quite alone, he took one of her hands in his and spread his other hand over her forehead.

[We've been through so much together.  Won over when the odds were against us.  There's no reason why we shouldn't do so again.  You have to wake up!]  A more aggressive edge came into his tone, the product of frustration.  [I can't do it without you.  I _won't_ do it without you.  We are a team.  So listen to me, Sapphire, you are going to hear my voice and come back to me.  Do it now!]

His eyes were closed in concentration, his right hand still at rest over Sapphire's brow.  Nothing existed except his voice echoing in her desperately empty mind, calling down to her, begging her to wake.

[I _need_ you, Sapphire.  We're most effective together.  It's like you always said, about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.  I know you're still there, I can even sense you, just barely.  I'm waiting here for you, so please, please keep trying...]

Outside the window, the distant stars silently stood witness to his pleas.

~~~

They mapped the constellations apparent in the image from Silver's memory, and cut down the search zone to a manageable area.  It would require hours, perhaps days, to track across all the timeframes in which the two agents could have been trapped, but Silver suggested that Sapphire may be trying to help by sending out a telepathic signal.

As these plans were put into action, the rest of the details were clarified.

"We need to get to Sapphire and Steel before the Transients return to check up on them," said the central figure.  "We must hope we are not already too late.  The enemy will be getting edgy, wondering where you went, Silver.  They'll want to finish their business with our Operators – whatever that might mean for them – as soon as they are able.  We have to hope we'll get there first, or we will lose our colleagues."

Silver was not the only individual in attendance who shuddered at this casual conviction.

"When we've located them," the figure went on, "Silver will 'port through, inform them of the plan and then get out, leaving Sapphire and Steel with the means to deal with their captors."

"Why didn't they get in on the plot earlier than this?" asked Silver, increasingly indignant about how his colleagues had been left uninformed in the face of danger.

"Transient Beings read minds as easily as you duplicate, Silver.  We'd have lost any advantage, right at the beginning, if Sapphire and Steel had been fully briefed."

"The Transients didn't read us while they had us at the garage.  I'd have felt that kind of violation," Silver insisted.

"Yes, you all would.  They couldn't show their hand too soon.  They'll have read Sapphire and Steel as soon as the standoff was over, though – when our agents were at their most vulnerable.  Fortunately you were out of the way when they started fishing for intelligence."  The central figure took note of the disgust on Silver's face and conceded, "It's unpleasant, I know, but this whole matter has required sacrifices.  We're playing for higher stakes than the lives of two of our agents."

Silver turned away from the figure.  "And the end justifies the means," he muttered, with no little venom.

~~~

When Sapphire came to, she was falling.  Dizziness and disorientation slapped her in the face – an adrenaline surge that actually helped her come to her senses – before she was reassured that there was to be no sudden, pulverising impact as she hit the ground.  Satisfied by this, she turned her thoughts to assessing the situation.

Darkness was all around.  Her rate of descent seemed to be slowing by the second and she acknowledged that this reality was not physical.  Something had happened to her.

That wasn't all.  There was a voice: a man calling her name.  A faint voice, but full of familiarity and solidity and comfort.  Sapphire wanted to respond.  Forming a word in her mind, she flung it upwards, towards a minute shaft of light far above.

A pause.  A wait.  A wait that seemed to take eons, and then:

[Sapphire!  I'm here.  I'm here.  You're so faint; you must concentrate.  Wake up, Sapphire!]

[Keep talking,] she sent to him, even though talking wasn't quite what they were doing.  [Don't stop.  I need your voice.]

He heard and complied.  Her name was repeated, interspersed with entreaties and instructions and encouragement.  She focused on that sound and heard it begin to grow louder.

The falling stopped.  Sapphire hovered, in limbo, until with excruciating slowness she willed herself upwards.  As soon as she tried, a stinging pain made her eyes water, but she held on to the harness of Steel's voice and climbed, obstinately ignoring everything else.  She imagined her telepathic link with Steel as a strong arm that reached within her mind; she imagined him lending his own power to her.  Perhaps only scant moments after their minds had connected again, it all happened in a rush.  She pulled, hauled, strained to reach him...

...and Sapphire flew free from the depths of unconsciousness.

Now her reality became physical.  Sapphire felt the bench against her back and Steel's hand at her forehead.  She opened her eyes, squinting in the light, noting Steel's frown and concentration.  As her partner's eyes fluttered open she saw a shine within them which betrayed his relief.  He looked at her for a long interval, searching her as if for proof that the spark of her awareness was back, before he exhaled slowly and then lowered his forehead to rest it against her own.

~~~

One more hour and the Transients would be ready.  Their energies were all but recovered.

No words passed between them; they knew what had to be done.

The dimensional pocket where Sapphire and Steel were trapped was escape-proof.  They knew about all of the Operators' abilities and had constructed the prison with these in mind.

At the given time the leader would return there, alone at first.  The Transient would allow the two agents to wake and it would make them aware of their helplessness.  It would ask whether they welcomed the prospect of a lifetime in such a cage; a lifetime for them would be a long stretch indeed.  Did they really want to stay there, with only each other and insanity for company?

Then it would make the offer.  This wouldn't be the first time that the Transients had asked agents of the Hub to join them: to inherit the powers and shelve the responsibilities.  Two of their current number had been recruited this way.  Another recruit waited to join them on completion of the plan.  Both Sapphire and Steel had refused previous approaches.  The leader couldn't blame them for turning the invitation down before.  What, after all, did his group have to offer?  A life in the restrictions of the past?  That was no carrot to dangle under an Operator's nose.

But all that was different now.  The Transients had a hold over these two agents.  They had something with which to bargain.

Freedom.

~~~

Hub-side, the search began.

Those with the gift of scrying stretched their senses.  Diamond was the best at this, his sensitivity over distance better even than Sapphire's.  He and his fellow telepaths sat in the central chamber and reached with their thoughts.

Translating the results to a map, crossing off areas covered, noting anything untoward, the three figures of authority documented the search.  The silence was palpable; the importance of the result, onerous.

Silver, no longer useful for the time being, strutted about like an expectant father, out of the way so as to offer no distraction.  He was a Technician: brilliant in some areas, redundant in others.  He was plagued by images of his unconscious colleagues suffering an obscene violation of their minds, even while he rushed to safety.  Pangs of guilt consumed him.

They _had_ to find Sapphire and Steel.  Never mind the higher stakes, never mind the fate of the damn universe – he couldn't let his two colleagues die without showing his contrition at the way he had left them to this fate.

~~~

Sapphire recovered quickly once the block within her mind had been countered by Steel's revelation.  She swung her legs over the bench and sat straight.

"Real space," she repeated.  "Of course.  We nearly didn't see it.  They're better at mind control than we thought."  She tilted her head.  "What's our next move?"

"Assuming that Silver did get back to the Hub, they'll be scrying for us.  The universe is, however, a big place, and to pin down our location is going to be damn near impossible."

"Can't we do something about escaping ourselves?  Are we dependent on a rescue?" Sapphire asked, reluctant to rely on the actions of others.  She didn't give voice to the idea that their authority back at the Hub might not even bother with the effort of such a rescue, though she knew such a notion had already occurred to Steel.  He was the strategist in their partnership.

Steel slumped down in his chair.  "I don't know!" he said, clearly frustrated.  "I can't see any way of moving from this spatial location to somewhere safe.  I can't access the usual travelling dimensions, and I assume you can't either."

"They've cut us off completely," she agreed.

"And I'm increasingly convinced that the Transients will be back for us.  They're probably regrouping at the moment," Steel went on.  "The only measure I think we can take is to try to help any rescue that our side are attempting.  We can put out a signal they might recognise.  Give them something to home in on."

"Very well," Sapphire said.  "I can transmit, but the signal will soon be lost in the expanse of space around us.  I need an amplifier."

"I can do that."  Steel leaned forward to meet Sapphire's outstretched hand and closed his eyes as she connected with certain pressure points at his temple.

Sapphire smiled as Steel's familiar strength flowed through the link.  Her eyes grew bluer-than-blue and she began to transmit, pushing to one side the insistent qualm that her strongest signal could go unheard for thousands of years in the infinite reaches of space.

~~~

Silver's pacing eventually took him further away from the central chambers and into the ghost city of the outskirts.  The area was never exactly bustling, but it was eerie to see it so deserted.  All agents not on active assignment were assisting with the search.  Even the trainees had been called upon.

He needed some time to indulge the morbid thoughts playing around his conscience.  As he walked, his mind dwelt on the plan.  It had all been necessary: the deceit, the way his friends had been used, his own swift exit when the going got too tough.  But the necessity didn't make it any easier to deal with.  He and Sapphire had been close when attending the academy.  They'd been on the verge of something special when Sapphire had been yanked out of the learning environment and into active duty with Steel.

Silver stopped and stared up at the white light of the Hub's domain, smiling with these wistful memories.  He and Sapphire had always enjoyed a connection, an understanding, call it what you like.

And he had abandoned her.

His smile faded.  He should be with her, right now.  Steel's company could hardly be supportive; that man was nothing more than a block of granite.  How Sapphire continued to put up with her partner's surliness was beyond Silver.  She even seemed to be content in their pairing, though she had such a generous nature that she could make the best of any situation.  Even one where she had to do all of the giving.

Silver sighed, conjuring an image of Sapphire's shining golden hair and sparkling eyes.

"Daydreaming again, Silver?"

His head snapped round as he was addressed.  Mercury had approached behind him.  That agent tended to travel through folded dimensions, slipping from one location to another.  It was his speciality.  It could also be very disconcerting for those agents who were restricted to the usual travelling dimensions.

"Oh!  Oh, it's you," Silver said.  He was less than enthusiastic at Mercury's company.  The diminutive agent was undergoing a probationary period following a mistake which had cost the life of another of their colleagues.  Mercury had a long way to go to restore the authority's faith.  There were those on the Hub who were still refusing to even speak with him.  "I'm sorry, I was quite lost in thought.  Um – how are they getting on?"

"Slow progress."  Mercury shook his head.  "It's frustrating to find yourself redundant during the most important operation you've ever encountered."

"Yes, yes, I know."  Silver heaved a sigh.  "My own usefulness has waned, for now."

"But they're still _missing_.  Our two colleagues, our two friends.  Listen, I've been thinking."

"Oh yes?"  Silver glanced at Mercury and raised an eyebrow.

"I've been thinking about how the Transients might have escaped from their prison in the past."

"Yes, that bothers me too," Silver agreed.  "We've all spent hours dealing with their appearance and formulating plans to confine them again, but no one seems to have asked that question.  How did they escape?"

"It's a teaser," Mercury said.  "If they had the means to break free, why wait until now to use it?  They were locked away centuries ago."

"Something has changed, then.  Some new power has come to them."

"How?  The past contains no such power."

"Then..."  Silver frowned, making the next logical step.  "Then they must have received some external help."  As soon as he thought of this, the pieces seemed to fall into place.  "That's how they came by the device.  The one I duplicated."

"Right."  Mercury held up a finger and emphasised each word.  "Someone or something was contacted by them, or sought them out, and made a deal."

"Do you know, I think you must be right!"  Silver grasped his colleague by the shoulder.  "But Mercury – you must have realised the potential jeopardy that leaves us in.  Not only are we fighting the Transients, but also some other...force?  Thing?  Something in league with them!"

"Yes, I've realised that."

"We have to report this.  Come on!"  Silver turned, attempting to guide Mercury back towards the central chamber.  When his efforts were resisted, he rounded on the agent.  "Don't you see, the authorities may have been too busy to grasp this danger!  And the presence of the scryers could tip off our enemies before we've had time to brief Sapphire!"

"And Steel."

"Yes, and Steel.  So let's go!"

A sly smile grazed Mercury's smooth, child-like face.  "It's all right."

"It is not all right!"

"Shh.  It's all right, there's no problem."

Silver finally realised that the behaviour of his colleague was strange.  He stopped trying to move them away and stared into Mercury's eyes.

"You see," came Mercury's soothing explanation, "I already know who the accomplice is."

"You do?" asked Silver, already reaching out for a spare travelling dimension to provide an escape back to the central chamber.  His attempt was blocked, and he noticed a taint around the power being evoked as his body was frozen in place.  A calculating nod answered his query, and Silver felt a wash of defeat.  "Yes, you do," he acknowledged.

It made a terrible kind of sense.  Mercury was one of the few agents of the Hub with the skill to combine technical expertise with knowledge of interdimensional manipulation.  He could have built the device which had freed the Transients from the past and trapped Sapphire and Steel.

Silver was furious with himself for not seeing it earlier.

He was helpless as Mercury retrieved a small cube from about his person and lifted it to Silver's temple.  Before the device compromised the shell of protection around his mind, Silver's final conscious thought was how he had once again failed the beautiful Sapphire with the shining golden hair and sparkling eyes.

~~~

Sapphire had lost herself to the telepathic transmission she sent.  The signal consisted of nothing more than her identifier: a means of telling her colleagues, _'I am here!'_

Steel was in a virtual trance.  His mental skills were excellent, especially given that he wasn't a true sensitive, but Sapphire sensed peripherally that she was draining him.  She broke off the transmission, concerned that Steel might push himself too far during this first try and be unable to offer further assistance.

Her eyes lost their supernatural glow and she focused on her partner.  Gently she swept her fingers away from his temple and over his forehead, tucking back loose locks of hair.  Steel's eyes blinked open, and she watched him remember where they were and what they attempted.  He caught her hand before she could reclaim it, brushing his lips over the inside of her wrist.  She knew he was offering the only fleeting distraction from their fate that he could, but this small gesture kept despair at bay for a few moments more.

"Anything?" Steel asked.

"No.  Though that might not mean nobody heard us."

"I don't understand."

"If they're scrying for our location, they'll be listening for signals but not necessarily sending signals themselves."

"I see.  Shall we try again?"

"In a few minutes.  Rest for a while."

"But–"

"You're no good to me, exhausted!" Sapphire interrupted sharply.  Steel's impatience was predictable, but she could not risk draining him so much.  "Please," she went on more calmly.  "Just a few minutes.  I need to rest too."

Steel nodded and sank back into the chair.  He squirmed in its hard wooden confines for a moment, before standing, pushing the chair to one side and sitting down on the floor beside Sapphire's bench.

She watched him stretch his legs and drop his head forward.  These quiet moments were the worst, she decided.  When they had nothing else to occupy their thoughts, it was all too easy to envisage being trapped in this cage for the rest of their lives.  They needed another distraction while they both recuperated.  Sapphire stretched an arm and began to massage the bared nape of Steel's neck, rewarded by his low murmur of pleasure and a casual shuffling which inched him closer to her.

She smiled.  For a man of steel, her partner could be tactile on occasion.

But it wasn't enough.  Reminders of their predicament were non-stop.  She had borrowed from the power which drifted on the winds of time, as she'd flung their cry for help across space.  The connection had been made and she cursed her sensitivity, because this connection was a two-way affair.  As she had transmitted, she'd also sensed the horror of all that was still to come.  There was no hope.  Fighting fate was a lesson in futility.

Chaos laughed menacingly within her mind.  She had sensed the future's outraged cries and experienced its agony.  The pain was all-consuming.  Sapphire knew, beyond doubt, that she and Steel would die in this room and the Transients would go free. 

She had seen these things.  They had to happen.  There was nothing she could do to stop them.

She was helpless as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.  Her hand slowed on Steel's neck and he glanced round.  Sapphire stared at her partner through wide eyes, and a sob shook her shoulders.

[What is it?] he asked, straight into her mind.

Unable to compose her thoughts, she channelled her precognition through their link, just for a moment.  That glimpse of her pain was enough for Steel.  He shifted his position on the floor to kneel before Sapphire.  Grateful for his understanding, she dropped her head to his shoulder and took what comfort she could in his embrace.

~~~

"Sapphire."

The word was spoken without purpose, like an inconsequential nocturnal mutter, but it brought the busy central chamber to a standstill.

It was Diamond who'd spoken.  He was suddenly the subject of everybody's attention.  He sat motionless, cross-legged upon the floor beside the projected image of the search area, but his glacial eyes remained focused on a location which was no part of the room.

Just when the silence became oppressive, Diamond repeated Sapphire's name, then yanked his head back and gasped.

"Report!" came the curt order from the central alcove.

"I've found her," Diamond said, returning to the here and now.  "Oh, she is _hurting_..."  He ran a hand over his shaven head in a gesture of distress and stood, peering more closely at the map and reaching with his mind again.  When he returned to the room this time, he was more confident.  "Here!" he snapped, and pointed to a precise location on the image.  It was marked.

"Can you arrange a safe 'port?" asked the leader.

"With some help," he agreed.  Jet moved immediately to her fellow empath's side.

"Do it!" came the order.  As the two agents linked and began their task, the command went out for Silver's immediate attendance.

~~~

The Transients were ready for the next stage.  Energy levels were recovered, although the prison still demanded some effort to maintain.  But they were dangerous again.

The leader prepared to go through alone.  It would be in no danger.  For a start, the two captives would be comatose until it woke them, and in any case, why would they attack when the Transients represented their only means of escape?  Even do-gooders like Sapphire and Steel would not risk losing their freedom.

The leader ordered its colleagues to prepare the way.  The waiting would soon be over and the real fun could begin.

~~~

"Oh, really, must you?"

The sound of any voice but their own within the confines of their prison was startling in the extreme.  Sapphire, more composed now, jerked her head up from Steel's shoulder and looked over towards the doorway.  Steel spun around at the same time.

"Silver!" Sapphire gasped.  She stood, thinking she should greet him, but something held her back.  Steel seemed to have the same misgivings and remained by her side after clambering to his feet.

"The very same," Silver threw back.  He strode towards them, fishing in his pocket.  "Now I haven't got much time.  They could be back here at any second."

"Well let's go, then!" Steel growled.

A cloud of remorse passed over Silver's face.  "I can't.  You've been used.  _I've_ been used.  But it's for the best.  We have to get the Transient Beings back where they belong, or there will be hell to pay."

"I know," Sapphire said.  Of course she knew.  She'd _seen_ it.  "What must we do?"

"Take this," Silver told her, handing her a small device.  It looked like a ball bearing.  "I had one, before.  It got me home.  It'll get you home."

"Both of us?"

"Yes, yes, so long as you're in physical contact.  But don't use it too soon!  Now I have to update you on the plan but I don't know how long–"

"Come here," Sapphire said, gesturing with her arms.  "We'll do it the easy way."

"No!"  Silver stepped back.  He fumbled for words for a moment before continuing.  "There are some things that I know that you mustn't.  You're aware that the Transients will read your minds?"

"They've already done rather more than that!" Steel asserted.

"I know.  I'm sorry.  But understand, if they find some things out before the right time, then–"

"Sapphire can shield parts of her mind," Steel suggested.  "You don't need to tell me."

"I can't!" Silver insisted.  "Anything that Sapphire knows becomes intrinsically known to you as well.  You're too close.  This is wasting time!"

"Then tell us," Sapphire said.  "Tell us what we need to know and get back to the Hub."

~~~

The route was almost ready.  Within the confines of the past, the Transient Beings could access and use the corridor of time as though born to it, but spatial teleportation had always been more difficult.  Mercury's help had allowed them to overcome this weakness, but Mercury wasn't available and the remaining Transients constructed a dimensional path with the slow deliberation of students still learning their craft.

The leader strutted impatiently to and fro, examining the work.

Soon.

~~~

"And do we know how the Transients obtained their device?" asked Steel.

Silver looked away, perhaps in frustration.  "No.  Not yet.  But remember that they still have it.  If they corner you and doubt your allegiance then they will not hesitate.  They'll use the device as a weapon to destroy you."

"Well, that's simple then," Steel said with a false bravado.  "Join the Transients.  Convince them that we owe no further allegiance to the authority we've risked our lives for centuries to uphold.  Withstand any mind probes which attempt to prove that we're lying.  Lull them into a false sense of security, so we can retrieve the device, send them back to the past and get home in time for tea and biscuits."

Silver barked a short, humourless laugh.  "Stroll in the park, for you two," he said lightly, his expression failing to match his tone.  He turned to Sapphire.  "There's nothing more I can give you.  I have to go."  He reached to cup her cheek.

"Then go.  We'll see you soon."  Sapphire pressed Silver's hand against her for a moment, then gently moved it away.  She watched as he stepped clear of them, palmed his own ball bearing and activated it.

There was a blurring and an ultrasonic buzz, and then they were alone in the café once again.

~~~

"Now!"

The leader stepped forward to the place where dimensions had been folded and twisted.  It took one last look at its three associates, who sat calmly to one side, already waiting for its return.  As it watched them, they began to fade from view until it could no longer discern their shape.  The cold, grey walls of the institution faded too, to be replaced by a colourful poster advertising the healthy advantages of drinking natural milk.

This was a nice touch.  The leader had materialised in the hallway outside the café: a part of the pocket which would have been denied to the two captives.  This gave it the opportunity to check on them before it entered.  It stepped up to the door and prepared to open it by just a crack.

~~~

"Take this," Sapphire told Steel, and handed him the ball bearing.

"You should keep it," he said.

"Where?  No pockets."

"Make some."

"I can borrow the illusion of changed clothes, but I can't conjure them out of nothing.  You know that," she admonished.  "Take it."

They returned to the bench.  Steel spent a few moments examining the device which Silver had given them.

"Sapphire."

"Yes?"

"There's something I must say."

"I'm listening."

Steel indicated the metal ball.  "I'll keep this in my inside pocket.  Don't forget where it is.  If it looks as though we're to be separated, you _must_ take it."

"Steel–"

"No!  I mean it, Sapphire.  Don't hesitate to use this thing without me.  Remember, if you're free you stand a much better chance of locating and rescuing me than the other way around.  Promise me."

Sapphire lowered her head.  "I promise," she murmured.

As Steel dropped the device into his jacket pocket, Sapphire sensed something that had upset the balance of their environment.  Her head turned towards the door.  Steel noticed and he followed her gaze.  A hollow terror gripped Sapphire as she realised that they had no more time to prepare.  The door shook in its frame.  Something behind it had pushed it open by a crack.

Steel got to his feet, and Sapphire joined him.  She wanted to face this latest peril from a position of strength.

A last minute thought occurred to her and she stepped away from Steel, moving to the opposite corner of the café.  If Silver was wrong about what the Transients wanted – if the Transients had returned to destroy them rather than offer them a job – then she did not want to present an easy target.  She sensed Steel's loss as she left his side, but shared her reasoning with him silently.  He understood.

Planting her feet firmly, she watched the door and waited.

~~~

The leader needed to take a few moments to calm its fury when it saw that the two agents were not only wide awake but were standing ready.

How had they avoided triggering the coma?

The only possible explanation was that they had not attempted to access any of the forbidden memories.  It nodded to itself.  That would be what had happened.  They hadn't questioned their location and had not tried to fill in the gaps of the recent events at the service station.  The two agents had simply been waiting.

Which meant that nothing had changed.  The plan would proceed as intended.

Composed once again, the Transient pushed open the café door and stepped inside.

~~~


	4. Deal With the Devil

The Transients did not name themselves.  Such identifiers were unnecessary.

Two of the three individuals remaining in the abandoned Cumbrian mental hospital had, however, been recruited rather than born to the power.  These two no longer had any right to the names they once used, but they'd kept them anyway.

Topaz had been a sensitive, a telepath.  She'd grown bored with the constant repetition of her assignments and, in her apathy, had become something of a problem to the network.  After three Operators in a row had requested she be replaced as their partner, she'd been sidelined: taken off active duty and used only as a useful resource at the Hub when required.  It had been terribly unfair.  And, she'd told herself, it was primarily down to the fact that her colleagues had been intimidated by her ability.  Topaz had accepted the invitation to join the Transients in order to use her skills more fully.  This had been infinitely more important to her than her allegiance.

It was still more important.

She had already defined her own place in history: the very first agent to have defected from the Hub, about a century ago.  She considered herself something of a ground-breaker, perhaps a trend-setter.  Admittedly, the trend had not exactly caught on.  She could not be held accountable for the limitations of others.

Since gaining the Transients' power alongside her innate abilities, Topaz was able to change her form at will.  The one she'd settled on reflected her personality and her power.  She appeared human, of course; they all did while working on Earth, and she was most comfortable in the human shape.  She'd made herself tall, with distinctive blue-black hair.  Her face was sharply angled, maybe severe.  Striking.  Too striking to be attractive, of course, but such things were for the shallow and uninformed masses.  Most important was that her appearance was unforgettable.

Her fellow recruit had formerly been a Specialist; he was elemental, as were all Specialists, and was known as Nitro.  His skills were in his hands; he could separate and contract the atoms of any substance – including thin air – to simulate solid, liquid or gas, thus provoking intense temperature changes at his fingertips.  Shortly after Topaz's defection he too had switched sides, throwing off his duties and embracing anarchy.  Topaz had sympathised with his complaints: he'd grown tired of constantly providing the same limited skills, and he'd wanted to embrace more power.

In appearance Nitro was pale, with close-cropped silver hair and thin lips.  He wore a tall form, taller than his original shape had been, but this was the only change he'd made.  Topaz didn't mind.  She quite liked the familiarity.

Nitro and Steel had worked together, before Nitro's defection.  In situations where Steel could not artificially reduce his body temperature, Nitro had been called in to provide the initial freeze.  His knowledge of Steel had proved useful.  And since Nitro's presence in their group was down to the example Topaz had set with her own defection, this meant that Nitro's usefulness was, in effect, her own usefulness, and she thus deserved acknowledgement.

It was a mystery to Topaz why she and Nitro remained the only recruits to date.  Well, the only recruits except Mercury.

Their remaining colleague, a true Transient, sat apart from them.  It watched them interact with half an eye, but its mind was focused on the café it maintained.  Just as well.  It had never been very talkative.

Topaz rubbed her shoulders, though the cold did not affect her.  She turned to face Nitro and sighed.  "A mental institution.  It might be nicely sinister and it's definitely out of the way, but why the hell couldn't we wait somewhere warm and clean?"

"We'll have all the trimmings we could want, soon," Nitro placated.  "Once we've recruited Sapphire and Steel, the network will fall apart.  We're already free of the past.  Soon there'll be nothing but chaos and disorder and we'll run free."

Topaz smiled her satisfaction at the idea and tossed a glance to their silent companion.  She considered complaining again, but its steady gaze gave her second thoughts.  She returned her attention to the space where their leader had left them, and she cleared her mind in order to await its mental instruction to reopen the path back.

~~~

The central chamber coalesced into view around Silver as he returned.  There was something he felt he had forgotten, though he put that down to the disorienting teleports he'd made during the last few hours.

"You got through?"  The figure in the central alcove was all business.

"Yes, yes, I got through."  Silver heard the tired irritation in his voice and composed himself.

"The device?"

"Yes, I gave Sapphire the device."  A sharp pain stabbed through Silver's head as he thought about the metallic ball, but he shook it off.  "And I told them that the Transients would be offering them a job, and I told them we were counting on them to retrieve the box and send the Transients back to the past."

"They believed you?  Sapphire and Steel think that they are on their own?"

"Well aren't they?"

There was a pause as the figure rippled.  "Quite.  Your assessment of the briefing?"

"It went as well as could be expected.  Better, given that I was out of that place before the Transients returned."

The central figure nodded and faded out of the alcove.  All they could do was wait now.  Silver massaged the side of his head and the nagging pain which persisted, then turned to leave the chamber.  He stopped short when Jet stepped in front of him.

"Silver," she began.  Jet chewed at her lip and studied her bare feet.  Finally she ventured, "How did he look?"

Silver reached a consoling arm around Jet's shoulders.  She and Steel had not been lovers for a long time, or at least so he believed.  The partnership between Sapphire and Steel seemed too intense to allow for other connections, more was the pity.  But Jet still retained a wealth of affection for the taciturn agent, and Silver himself felt drawn to her.  After all, while Sapphire was in danger, he and Jet had concerns in common.

"He looked fine," he said in as soothing a voice as he could manage.  When Jet remained dubious, he added, "Tired and anxious, but fine."

Jet smiled weakly, drained by her own recent efforts with the search.  "That's good."

"It most certainly is," Silver agreed, trying to sound cheerful.  "Come on, Jet, let's get out of here.  They'll call us when there's any news."

He guided her out of the chamber, all the while trying to place that sense of something forgotten.

~~~

"And how are we settling in, then?" asked the Transient Being in its man-form.  It stepped around the torn fixings from the broken table, casting a glance over them with a smirk on its face.

Sapphire detested the creature's appearance.  The hooded, arrogant eyes and sneering mouth fitted well with its true lack of compassion.  She should have noticed it earlier.  When they'd all been at the service station and the 'man' was playing the part of romantic runaway with the woman, she had not seen any of the looks or the touches one might expect in the interaction of two lovers.

Steel, a few paces away from her, drew himself up and did a good job of appearing calm and unafraid.  "Oh, the place seems pleasant enough," he replied glibly.  "But I'm afraid I have to report that the service is atrocious.  Sapphire and I have been here for hours, and haven't been offered so much as an aperitif."

The Transient pretended to chuckle, though Sapphire saw disconcertion behind its eyes.  She sent a low undercurrent of warning to her partner.  Steel enjoyed provoking the forces which threatened them.  It was often a good strategy to use; they learned more this way than by allowing their opponent to spoon-feed them information.  But it was not without risk.

And here, now, their immediate goal was to initiate some kind of understanding with their enemy.  Provoking the Transient gave them no advantage.  She felt the warmth of Steel's reassurance and relaxed.  He had not forgotten what they had to do.

"Dear me.  I must say, I'm terribly sorry about that," the Transient said, still playing the game.  "Perhaps you and the lovely Sapphire would care to consider leaving here and eating...elsewhere?"  It motioned to a table and sat down, keeping its hands in plain view, folded on the table top.

Sapphire looked to Steel for the lead.  They might share equal responsibilities within their partnership, but most times Steel assumed command.  This was an approach which they both accepted, since it gave Sapphire the chance to analyse their enemy without the distraction of gamesmanship.

Steel risked taking his eyes off the Transient for a few moments and glanced across at her.  Sapphire knew what he was silently asking.  She stretched with her senses to read the Transient, looking for any indication that it intended violence toward them.  Although the being was steeped in brutality, there was no indication that it was here to destroy them.  She sensed more of an anticipation and a feeling of triumph; the Transient Being was possibly over-confident.  All this she conveyed to her partner in a moment.

Steel stepped up to the table.  He drew a chair out for Sapphire to take and pushed it in for her as she sat down, then he took the seat beside her.  He folded his hands in a mirror of the Transient's posture and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Why don't you tell us what you have in mind?"

~~~

Jet had invited Silver into her retreat, and he had accepted.  He had no ulterior motive, of course.  Jet was a beautiful woman, but there was a time for seduction and that time was not now, in the midst of crisis.  She just wanted company, and he was not averse himself.  So he let her ramble on, filling the silence with colourful reminiscences.  As she talked, Silver began to see a side of Steel that had hitherto remained undiscovered.

Jet curled up on a cushion and spoke with endearing animation of her short partnership with Steel.  More than two centuries ago, when they had both been newly active agents, circumstance had thrown them together.  They'd been assigned new partners as soon as they became available – partners able to pass on more experience – but had apparently learned a fair deal from each other during this short pairing.

Jet began to recount how Steel had asked her to teach him about her sensitivity.  Though he had no such skills, he'd shown a desire to understand the power Jet could call upon: how far she could push things, how much of her energy it sapped, how soon she could recover.

How much it hurt.

Silver, unversed in any mental power beyond simple first-level telepathy for inter-agent communication, was surprised.  He had never realised that sensitives suffered to use their skills.  The fact that an agent of Steel's cold efficiency would take the time to recognise and explore this left Silver feeling chagrined.  He'd known Sapphire for a long time, but she'd never hinted that her powers caused her pain.

Infected by Jet's quiet honesty, he voiced these thoughts.

"Oh, we don't tend to go round complaining about it," Jet said.  "Our skills are a gift.  They take training to enhance and practice to control, but they're still a gift.  Something positive."

"Show me?" Silver asked, moving closer to Jet and offering his temples.  Because, damn it, he was not going to be outdone in warmth and understanding by his greatest rival.

"All right," Jet agreed.  "But only a hint.  A bit of context.  I don't want to hurt you."  She reached forward and made contact–

She jerked her hands back.

"What is it?" Silver asked, disconcerted.

"Your mind!" Jet said with a gasp.  Tentatively she reached forward again.  This time she maintained a longer contact, eyes flickering this way and that but seeing things that were far beyond the confines of her retreat.  Silver waited as she sought out the nature of her misgivings.

Then her mouth fell open in shock.  Silver was becoming upset, and he grasped her falling hands and shook them.  "Jet!  What in heaven's name is wrong?"

"Someone," she stated, "has been tampering – rather clumsily, I might add – with your mind."

~~~

The impossible café was silent for a time after the Transient had made its offer.  Although their response had already been strategised, to respond too quickly would have looked suspicious.

Steel turned his head to contemplate Sapphire.  His thoughts filled their own private mind-to-mind connection as he tried to find the expression which might tell their captor that he did not _like_ the idea of working for the Transients but felt he had no viable alternative.

[This is the corner we've been backed into,] Sapphire pointed out.  [It's more or less the truth, for us.  We don't want to join, but we must.]

She tried to remain sedate and composed while Steel looked at her.  She never allowed herself to crumple, whatever the circumstances, when they faced down the enemy.  Weakness could only ever be indulged when they were alone.  When it was over.

She had to believe that at some point all this would be over.  She had to.  In spite of the future that the winds of time had revealed.

Steel cast one last, lingering look over Sapphire's features before he turned his gaze back to the Transient and sold their souls.

"We agree," he said quietly.

The Transient's cruel smile widened.

~~~

After his initial panic had died away, Silver allowed Jet to take the lead.  His earlier feelings of disorientation and forgetfulness made sense now, and though he could not remember how this had happened, he knew that Jet could fill any gaps.

He settled as comfortably as he could next to her, and once again she placed her hands on his temples.

"This is getting to be a habit," Silver said, covering his disquiet with bluster.  Jet smiled in understanding, then her eyes went black.

[Remember,] she sent into his mind.

~~~

Hidden in shifting dimensions, Mercury watched Jet's retreat.  He had no ability to enter it, not in this domain, not even using his travelling skills.  But Jet and Silver had been inside for a while, and it bothered him.  He had no telepathic talent so he could not read anything of the exchange taking place.

His earlier manipulation of Silver had been hasty and unskilled.  A sensitive of Jet's ability would see his fingerprints all over Silver's mind if she looked in the right places.

But even if Mercury's treachery had been discovered, Silver could not stay in Jet's retreat forever.  They had to come out some time.  It would take only a single suspicious sign from either of them and he could call upon all the power of the Transients and deal with them.

Permanently.

~~~

The Transient Being stood up and stepped away from the table in the café.  The two agents followed suit.

Sapphire was unsure as to what might happen next.  Presumably they would leave this godforsaken pocket – and not a moment too soon – but where they would be taken and what they might face there was unknown.

She shared her trepidation with Steel and sensed his own in return.  He stood close to her, his shoulder touching hers, and she drew comfort from his presence.

The Transient indicated the doorway with a questioning eyebrow.  "Shall we go?" it asked, voice greasy with satisfaction.

"Yes, let's go," Steel replied.

Sapphire felt her partner place a guiding hand in the small of her back and they stepped forward together.  When the Transient Being made no move they stopped short, watching as it brought up a warning finger.

"Oh, there is one small matter which I need to take care of," it said airily, as though talking about a triviality.  "You see, I have a problem."

"What's that, then?" Steel enquired, his tone guarded.  Sapphire noted how he casually rearranged the opening of his jacket, and understood that he was offering her a reminder of the location of their ticket home.  She had the power to retrieve it through telekinesis if necessary, but was loath to consider the possibility of using it without her partner.

"You must understand – this is not the first time I've offered you a place in our ranks.  You've both refused us, once before."  The Transient studied them, perhaps looking for any indication that this was not shared knowledge between herself and Steel.  "So how do I know, this time, that you aren't joining us with some ulterior motive?"

"Of course we have an ulterior motive!" Steel snapped.  Sapphire readied an undercurrent of warning, but it was unnecessary.  Steel played the part magnificently.  "How can we possibly refuse when the alternative is to remain here for the rest of our lives!"

"Well said!" the being laughed.  Then its eyes narrowed.  "But what loyalty can we expect from you both?  You've been coerced into our number.  If the opportunity presents itself to leave us, or even destroy us, how do I know you won't take it?"

Steel paused before he replied, and Sapphire sensed how carefully he chose his words.  "Our organisation has abandoned us here.  It is my belief that they would not be unduly bothered by our destruction.  Sapphire and I are well aware of how we are resented in high places."  All this was the truth.  "I can't promise you our lifelong allegiance, because you'd be asking for something it's against my very nature to give.  I'm sure you understand that.  But as Sapphire and I owe no further loyalty to the Hub, I can say this much – we no longer recognise any duty to work towards your destruction."

"You're offering a temporary alliance?" the being suggested.

"I'm offering our help in...whatever it is you need us for."

"What makes you think that we need you?"

"The fact that we are alive."

"Ah, yes, I suppose that would do it."  The Transient seemed to consider.  "Your attitude seems fair," it decided.  "But you could be lying."

"You'll have to take that chance," Steel said.

"Why should I?"  The being smirked.  "You know I have the means to discover the truth."

"But we will not offer our assistance willingly if you violate our minds again," Steel countered.  He pressed closer to Sapphire, and she reached with her mind into his inside pocket, locating the metal device and lifting it an inch in readiness.

"What makes you think that your willingness matters to me?"

Sapphire felt a pressure inside her head: the Transient Being was preparing to probe her mind.  When she glanced at Steel she saw him frowning and realised that he'd felt the same invasion.  This was no good.  Steel had done an admirable job of trying to persuade the Transient that they could be trusted, but it hadn't been enough.  If the Transient discovered that they were still loyal to their organisation then the plan was finished.  Slowly she began to draw the device out of Steel's pocket, at the same time offering as much resistance as she could to the insistent probing around her mind.

Steel attempted to continue the discussion, though he obviously found the probe uncomfortable.  His voice became strained.  "Because you'll get more out of us that way than by forcing our allegiance!" he ground out through clenched teeth.

But the mental incursion was not withdrawn.  Aware that they had failed before they'd even had a chance to gain some ground, Sapphire decided to err on the side of caution.  She whipped the device from Steel's jacket and palmed it.  Then she threw herself into her partner's arms and activated the mechanism.

Nothing happened.  She tried again.

Nothing.

Steel, by now almost blind with the pain of his mind's violation, took the ball bearing from her with fumbling fingers.  As Sapphire held on to him he tried to activate the device himself.

They remained in the café, helpless under the mental onslaught of the Transient Being.

Sapphire still clung to Steel, even when it became clear that they would not be whisked off to the soothing dimensions of their home domain.  Steel arrested his attempt to work the device and, in a fit of futile retaliation, threw the ball at their enemy.  It broke into a haze of silvery glitter before it reached the Transient's face, and it smiled appreciatively.

Steel was no longer able to support his own weight and fell to his knees.  Sapphire sank to the floor with him, the room starting to swirl, and her last thought before losing consciousness was of Silver, with the playful eyes, the smooth throwaway lines and the suggestive smile.  One of her oldest friends; perhaps her first real love.

And she was consumed by the devastating awareness that Silver had betrayed her.

~~~

Silver had remembered.

The meeting with Mercury on the outskirts: he remembered that.  He remembered being held, helpless, as his mind was manipulated.  And he remembered taking the device which was to be given to Sapphire and Steel, and he remembered using his skill as a Technician to render it useless.

He collapsed to the floor of Jet's retreat after she'd teased the hidden memories back into their proper places.  He'd been violated.  The essence of himself had been penetrated, reorganised.  Part of him reacted violently, wanting to throw things around in a fit of rage.  Part of him wanted to weep.  Part of him wanted to be sick.

Jet held him as he trembled with the effort to regain composure.  Her presence helped, and he was grateful.  Finally he sat up, breathing more steadily.  He met Jet's worried eyes.

"We have to report this," Silver said.  "Maybe there's enough time for me to go back, this time with a working device.  Will you come with me?"

Jet nodded and stood up, grabbing Silver's hand and pulling him up beside her.  She waited while Silver straightened his tie and smoothed his hair, then they stepped over to the bounds of the retreat.

When no arch manifested, Silver turned to Jet.  "We have to get to the central chamber," he insisted.  "The authority has to know about this!"

"He's out there," Jet stated.

Silver paused, before frowning.  "Mercury?"

"Yes.  He's waiting for us."  Jet turned to Silver and explained.  "Inside your head, there was a residue, a taint from the power Mercury accessed to manipulate your mind.  You must understand that he has no intrinsic telepathic ability.  He borrowed the means to do what he did.  And that residue is distinctive.  I can look for it and recognise it, now.  There's a trace of it right outside and that can only mean Mercury is waiting for us.  He must have followed you after you returned to the Hub."

Silver took a wary step back from the boundary.

"Oh, it's all right," Jet reassured, stretching a comforting hand to Silver's arm.  "He has no jurisdiction in here.  He can't touch you."

"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Silver demanded.  "We can't stay here!  We'll have to teleport–"

"Mercury specialises in interdimensional travel, you know that," said Jet.  "The minute we try to 'port, he'll sense us and catch us.  Together we might be too strong for him, but until I know more about his new power, I can't be sure."

Silver cast about himself, looking for a solution.  This was infuriating!  There was a traitor in their midst, a traitor who'd successfully manoeuvred himself into a position where he could jeopardise all their hard work, and here they were stuck, unable to do anything about it.

"We can try something else," Jet said.  She walked past Silver and sat down once again.  "I can report this to the authority without leaving here.  You see, I _do_ have real telepathic ability."  Silver watched as her eyes went black.  Of course, he was presently sharing this retreat with one of the strongest sensitives on the Hub.  His anger and grief had distracted him.  He resolved to shelve the negative feelings until there was more time for him to deal with them.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, unable to hear the low-level communication Jet had initiated but wanting to be a part of the attempt nonetheless.

~~~

Topaz stood over the pallet which supported Sapphire's unconscious form.  She was quite profoundly irritated.  Even captured and hurt in the way Sapphire had been, she was still beautiful.  No wonder she was the subject of so many frivolous fantasies.  Not for the first time, Topaz considered that she was well out of that particular circle.

The two agents had been brought to the Cumbrian base after losing consciousness in the café.  The leader had coalesced into view once more, hanging on to them as though they were nothing more than rag dolls: Steel grasped by the scruff of the collar and Sapphire tucked under its other arm.  Their lifeless bodies had been deposited at separate ends of the complex.

The other true Transient had let the café go.  It had served its purpose.

The leader had described the negotiations with Sapphire and Steel.  Topaz had immediately been worried.  She'd genuinely believed that there was no question that the two agents would join them willingly.  When the leader had described their escape attempt and all that it had subsequently read in their minds, Topaz could only assume that the plan was finished.

But the leader had said that everything was progressing as expected.  Granted, things might have been easier if Sapphire and Steel had allowed their stay in the café to turn their allegiance, but it had apparently been anticipated that their loyalty would not be swayed so easily.  Which was why the leader of the Transients was now in the process of manipulating them further.

Topaz was infuriated by this.  A part of the plan had been kept – deliberately kept – from herself and from Nitro, and possibly from the other true Transient.  The implication was, therefore, that she had not _needed_ to know the full plot.  That she was not considered important.  She'd certainly been given no opportunity to debate any of the decisions made.

When she'd left the Hub all those years ago, she'd wanted to be more than a small cog in a big machine.  What was she now?  It seemed that little had changed.  Still, she could take some satisfaction from the knowledge that this agent, this beautiful Operator, would soon be suffering in the worst possible way.

The leader had spelled it out.  They needed Sapphire and Steel.  Escaping from the past had been exhilarating, but it had also been necessary.  Their numbers were already depleted, and losing the two at the service station had aggravated this problem.  Their long term aim was to destroy the organisation at the Hub, thus assuring their own future.  If there was no Hub, there would be no attempt to recapture or destroy the Transients.

In order to damage the organisation, they needed numbers.  And if they recruited those numbers from the organisation itself, their gain was its loss.

The most important factor was this: Sapphire and Steel were not only powerful, competent Operators who would be worthy recruits.  They were also a symbol, a portent of the organisation's doom.  Because when the other agents saw how even Sapphire and Steel had switched their allegiance, their defection would act as a catalyst for others to follow suit.

That was the plan.

But it was obvious now that Sapphire and Steel would only ever join the Transients if they saw no other choice.  That meant convincing them that the Hub had deserted them: easy enough to achieve by doctoring memories and thoughts.  Alongside this was a final persuasive measure.  The Transients needed to paint their own group in heroic, attractive, salvational colours.

And nothing brought diverse groups together like a common enemy.

Topaz smiled down at Sapphire's crumpled body.  Soon this beautiful agent would _rely_ on their group for support.

Soon she would have nothing else.

~~~

"Silver."

Jet's voice called Silver out of his trance.  He opened his eyes, remembered the enormity of their situation and crossed to where the empath sat.

"Tell me," he said.

"I've shared your assault with the authority.  I've told them Mercury is waiting for us here.  They are readying a cell."

Silver winced.  The cells were the places of nightmares; they severed an agent from all their power and befuddled the mind so that individual skills were impossible to utilise.  He could only recall them being used on one occasion during his considerable lifetime.  Jade had returned from an assignment, cloaked in madness after contact with their enemy.  She'd spent years recovering within the cell, a danger to herself and her fellow agents.  Silver could remember how Bronze had spent all his time Hub-side sitting outside her prison, talking to her, begging her to return to sanity.

He shuddered.  The cell was the right place for Mercury to be, but the idea was still chilling.

"How will they get him there?" he asked Jet.  "Faced with the prospect of a cell, Mercury can 'port out in a flash.  It's his thing!"

"Ah.  That's the bit you aren't going to like."

"Go on."

"We're the bait."

~~~

Mercury was getting edgy.  He had waited, ensconced in dimensions, for more than an hour.  What were Silver and Jet doing in there?  He supposed it was possible that Silver had seduced her.  Silver had a weakness for beautiful women, and now that Sapphire was out of the picture perhaps he'd turned his attention to another one.

But there was always the nagging possibility that Silver had remembered.  Mercury knew he was no expert in using the cube-shaped device given to him by his new leader.  An emergency situation had, however, demanded emergency measures.  The organisation should _never_ have been able to pinpoint the prison which held Sapphire and Steel.

Mercury's resolve was fading.  When he had contacted the Transients after the death of his late, lamented partner, Gold, and offered his services, he'd been convinced that it was the right thing to do.  He had always admired the Transients' discipline and intelligence, and he'd already known that he was finished on the Hub.  Unfair though it was, he'd been held accountable for the loss of his fellow Specialist.  It had been a split-second decision on that fateful assignment; he'd grabbed Gold from the entity's path and hurled them both into a safer dimension.  Unfortunately the dimension Mercury had chosen was not one used for travelling, and it had consumed Gold's form irretrievably.

It hadn't seemed to make any difference to his peers that, had Mercury not at least tried _something_ , Gold would have been destroyed anyway.  And no one here at the Hub had seemed to notice that Mercury had struggled badly with the loss of his partner and his own burden of guilt.

The Transients had welcomed him, though.  They'd treated him with respect.  And the plan they'd put together had seemed foolproof.  Only now, as that plan took one knock after another, Mercury had begun to wonder whether his new tribe really were one step ahead of the organisation.  It was starting to look unlikely.

The boundary of Jet's retreat shimmered, snapping him out of these misgivings.  Jet walked out, followed by Silver.  They paused for a moment before starting toward the central chambers.  Going to get an update, Mercury supposed.  He shifted in his dimensional cloak and, as they disappeared from view, he blurred into sight.

It was necessary to keep an eye on Silver.  Until he could make contact with the others, he had to assume that the plan was on course.

Noiselessly he resumed his pursuit.

~~~

"What's that?" Nitro asked his leader, as the Transient crouched beside Steel's pallet and placed a small cube against the unconscious agent's temple.

The leader was obviously feeling amiable, pleased with the way things were progressing.  Nitro knew this because his query was deemed worthy enough to be given an answer.

"It's a little something I invented.  An interface, if you like.  I gave one to Mercury.  Lets you read and change memories as though they were...records in a database."

"Fascinating," replied Nitro.  "But you don't need a tool to do all that, do you?"

"No, I don't.  But it makes life easier.  And it leaves my own energies free to undertake other tasks."

"Like what?"

"Oh, a bit of creative extrapolation," the Transient said with a smile, turning to look at Nitro.  That look informed him in no uncertain terms that the conversation was over.  Nitro backed down, watching as the leader closed its eyes in concentration and began to delve.

~~~

Silver was fighting hard to resist the impulse to run.  He and Jet had arrived at the centre of the Hub and marched through the compound, drawing ever nearer to the cells.  Mercury's presence, though not seen, was like a knife blade hovering a fraction of an inch away from the centre of his back.  It itched and it burned and it threatened.

Jet's presence was calming.  She was very like Sapphire in that regard, he'd noticed.  Peaceful to be with.  Sedate.  He distracted himself from the perils of the moment by wondering – when all this was over – whether he would see any sign that Jet could also match Sapphire's playfulness.

The doors of the central chamber drew closer.  When he and Jet walked past them, Mercury would begin to wonder where they were going.  These last few steps would be the most dangerous.  Silver gritted his teeth against his sense of trepidation and kept pace with his companion, glad that Jet showed no apparent need to speed up her own steps and give their intent away.

Just a few minutes more.

~~~

When his quarries walked past the central chamber, Mercury grew uncomfortable.  Where were they going?  He was torn, part of him wanting to keep tabs on Silver and remain in place to protect the plan.  Part of him wanted to jump into the travelling dimensions and home in on his new associates, leaving him free and clear of this nest of vipers.

Incredibly, part of him wanted to forget the whole deal and beg the authority for forgiveness and another chance.

Not that he would be given one.  All right, so he couldn't be replaced until he was dead, and he was a useful Specialist to have around.  But they would lock him in a cell and let him rot before granting him active assignments again, once they became aware of his treachery.

He turned the corner, noting that Jet and Silver were nearly out of sight.  Hurrying, Mercury started to catch up, and was almost on top of them when he realised they'd stopped.  He looked around, searching out somewhere to conceal himself, reaching for the dimensions he could slip between, only to be shocked into stillness when he recognised the part of the Hub to which he had been brought.

The cells.

He panicked.  Silver and Jet turned around to face him, and even the apprehension on Silver's face was no consolation.

Mercury spun around, looking to retreat.  Diamond stood a few feet away, flanked by Lead.  They'd crept up behind him.  The door to the nearest cell lifted, revealing the colourless shroud of its interior.  It was obviously an invitation.

He had been discovered.

But he was not going to allow himself to suffer a living death.  He might be finished Hub-side, but he'd always hated this place, and there were others waiting for him.  Even Lead was no obstacle when the unseen dimensions could be called upon to carry him away.

He reached out with his talent, smiling in satisfaction.  The smile faded when the glassy, reflective surface of a diamond ricocheted his power straight back at him.

Mercury tried again, and Diamond once more prevented him access.

The agents surrounding him all took one step closer, and Mercury found himself backed into the doorway of the cell.  He could already sense its deadening aura.  He hadn't been frightened for such a long time; he was supposed to _do_ the frightening.  This was all wrong.

He was a Transient Being now.

Mercury turned his attention away from his own skills, since they had been rendered temporarily useless.  In a final effort to evade the cell, he called upon all the corrupt power of his new associates and cast himself headlong into the corridor of time.

~~~

Silver watched Mercury ripple out of existence.  Jet was already walking up to Diamond and demanding to know what had gone wrong.

"I don't understand.  I made a barrier between him and his power."  Diamond shook his head, confused.

"Couldn't you smell the taint?" Jet demanded.  "He used the power given to him by the Transient Beings.  He's one of them now!"

"How could I prevent him using that power?"  Diamond sighed and, with a wave of his hand, closed the redundant cell door.  "I have no knowledge of it.  No understanding."

Jet relented and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.  "I know.  Let's get to the central chamber and make a report."

Silver walked with the group, and he thought that he should offer some positive thinking.  "Well," he said brightly, "we're in a better position now than we were an hour ago."  He looked around at the dubious faces of his colleagues.  "I mean, Mercury was only dangerous here whilst his defection was undiscovered.  Wolf in sheep's clothing."  At Diamond's frown, he added, "An old Earth expression.  Means that–"

"Thank you, Silver, I can guess what it means."

"Oh.  Good.  But you must see that Mercury has lost a lot of his usefulness to the Transients.  We know he's on their side now.  And if he comes back, which I think is very unlikely, we'll be ready for him."

There was a pause, during which the four agents arrived at the central chamber and awaited their authority.  Jet turned to Silver.

"You're right," she said.  "We're better off.  And we're all sorry that you had to go through such a terrible assault.  It's good that no one else will go through that."  Silver nodded at her words.  "But it isn't over.  Mercury's a skilful Specialist and a useful tool for the Transients.  Just because we've made the Hub safe again, doesn't mean that the rest of the universe is saved."  She hung her head for a moment.  "And we've still got two agents missing, in the clutches of the Transients, without any means of returning home."

Silver bit at his lip as he recognised the truth of this assessment.  Then the central alcove pulsed and the authority arrived.

~~~

"Well?"

The leader met the gaze of its fellow true Transient.  For the first time since the service station, it allowed itself to feel the loss of its two brothers.  Only the pair of them left now.  It wasn't right.

"Soon, now.  When they wake, they'll be ours," the leader said.

"Are they being watched?"

"Of course.  Topaz is even now trying to work out why, with any shape or form to choose, she still can't make herself as attractive as Sapphire."

The Transients shared a moment of amusement.  Then the leader settled down to recuperate its energy with a sigh.  "As soon as they wake up, we're back to acting out roles.  Just long enough to ensure their short-term cooperation."

"Short-term only?"

"Best we can do.  Don't worry, though; it should be long enough to trigger the events we require."

"Why short-term?"

"Because their allegiance will be based on lies, and lies have an unfortunate knack of eventually being revealed.  Alas, the two recruits we want happen to be the two most competent and powerful."

"Their strength is in their partnership, though.  Not the individual."

"Quite right," the leader agreed with a mischievous smile.

~~~


	5. Interludes In Blue and Grey

A man and a woman stood before the window in a brightly coloured café.  Their view consisted not of a road, nor a car park, nor any earthbound location, but of bright pinprick stars and dark, empty vacuum: the infinity of space.

They were surrounded by this void, with no means of leaving the small pocket which sustained them.  They had been lured, trapped and finally imprisoned.  The last, mocking words of their enemy had chilled them to the bone:

_"This place is nowhere.  And it's forever."_

The woman's name was Sapphire.  She found she was unable to contemplate the stars for long and turned away from the window.  She pulled out a chair from a nearby table and sat down, concentrating on the small chess pieces which littered the cloth.  She knew she had to focus on some task.  Despair was so close.

Sensing motion, she raised her head to watch her partner move away from the taunting vista of nothingness.  As she did, she blinked with confusion.  For a moment it had seemed as though they both still stood there, shoulder to shoulder.

Something was wrong, something didn't fit...

But it lasted only for an instant.  Steel had moved over to the doorway and was examining the force field which kept the vacuum at bay.

Where had the image come from?  Her confusion lingered until she realised that she could sense nothing further which was odd, and decided that the illusion had been brought about by the stress of the trap.  She needed a distraction.

Sapphire started to analyse the chess pieces.  They were all tiny, designed to go with the small travel set.  She held each figure between the tips of her fingers and used the flat of her other hand to try to make sense of them.  One piece: no information.  That was odd.  The next piece was the same, then the next.  Sapphire's concern grew.  She could read precisely nothing from these items.  Such a thing was unprecedented.  At the very least she should have received the date of manufacture, the nature and age of the components, the identity of the last handler.

She looked over to Steel, wanting to make him aware of this peculiarity.  Steel was tracing the force field with the palms of his hands.  Sapphire waited patiently for him to finish his task; time was not exactly at a premium here.

When he left the field alone and turned back into the room, Sapphire was disturbed to see that Steel's posture and expression contained a kind of wildness.  His fists clenched, as did his jaw, and the veins in his temples were rigid and pronounced: the harsh light of this place bounced off the thin sheen of sweat on his skin, bringing every new detail into sharp relief.  His eyes glared, darting here and there.

This was not just anger: she'd seen his anger on many occasions, and even been its target.  No, what Sapphire saw in Steel's eyes was a fury tinged with madness.  And it seemed to have come from out of nowhere.

"Steel?" she questioned, making her voice as calm as possible.  To try to soothe him would be pointless.  She understood his moods far too well; she knew what would placate him and what would only infuriate him further.  She tried to distract him from his rage.  "Steel, there's something very odd about these chess pieces."

Steel let none of his anger slip as he stalked over toward Sapphire.  She shifted with discomfort, but she'd never had any reason to fear her partner so she took no defensive stance.  Steel's so-called paranoia was common knowledge among all the agents of the Hub, but Sapphire herself had never seen any evidence that it existed.  What others called paranoia Sapphire recognised as Steel's innate sense of cynicism.  And frankly, all those times when he suspected the worst he'd usually been proved correct.

He had never once intentionally hurt her.  He could be impatient and prone to angry frustration and even a bit of a bully, but he was never, ever violent.  Even during their most animated disagreements, the ones which became fully fledged arguments, he'd never shown the slightest inclination to assert his superior strength and do her physical harm.  After all, she and Steel were more than partners.  They were closer than friends, closer than lovers.  Though neither of them had ever really discussed the strength of the connection between them, Sapphire was convinced that Steel understood its binding quality.

Therefore Sapphire had no reason to fear the agent now moving toward her with such hostility in his eyes.  Her discomfort was merely a product of stress.  It had to be.

Steel drew a chair from the table and sat down opposite her, steepling his fingers beneath his nose and studying her through narrowed eyes.  His expression was still filled with anger, but it was surely directed at those who had imprisoned them.

"Well?" he growled.

Sapphire almost sighed with relief.  For a minute she'd been worried that the Steel who shared her prison had been tampered with by the Transients, perhaps like the woman at the service station.  Hearing his voice, so familiar to her, the worries faded.  This was Steel.  He was the same agent he'd always been: gruff, surly and browbeating yet also honourable, brilliant and utterly trustworthy.

She tried a smile: the twinkling one which let him know that he could huff and puff to his heart's content and she would still be there when he was done, ready to try something new, to find the solution.  He always calmed down on seeing that smile.  Sometimes it even made him smile too: the embarrassed, self-deprecating smile which told her that he realised he'd been found out and apologised for the huffing and puffing.  The one which said, _'What would I do without you?'_

Unfortunately the circumstances right now were such that he was unable to return the smile.  Sapphire gave up and offered her discovery, wary that Steel liked few things less than being made to repeat himself.

She held up a chess piece for Steel's inspection.  "I've tried to read them.  Analyse them."

"And?"

"And I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?  You must be getting something from them."

Steel had not raised his voice, but as he spoke Sapphire sensed a dangerous instability within.  She tried to read his emotions through their link but found that the rage smothered everything else.  How was she to break this mood?  She needed her partner fully functioning to help her to find the way out of this cage.  Right now she was having trouble even meeting his eyes.

Sapphire swallowed her concerns.  She had nothing to fear from Steel.  They were closer than lovers.  They were connected.

"That's what I'm telling you," she said.  "Not one scrap of information is encoded in these pieces."

"That's ridiculous," Steel spat.  Sapphire watched a frown play over his forehead and shivered as he cast a brief suspicious look to one side, as though he'd caught sight of some invisible enemy.  He picked up one of the pieces, rubbed it between his hands and then handed it back.  "There.  If nothing else, you should be able to tell that I've been holding it."  Something else seemed to distract him, and this time he jerked his head around for an instant.

Sapphire felt an iciness begin to spread through her body.  Steel was sitting across the table from her yet he seemed to be a million miles away, and drifting further all the time.  How was she to bring him back?  She couldn't face this prison alone.  She snatched up the piece, expecting Steel to be right and to read his signature.  When the chess piece remained absent of information, a blank sheet, a little piece of nothingness, she let it fall out of her hands.

"There's nothing," she whispered.

Steel shook his head slowly, then more vigorously.  "No," he said.  He bit at his lip and looked down at the table, snatching up the bottle of tomato ketchup.  "What about this?"

Sapphire took the brandished bottle gingerly from his hands.  _'I have nothing to fear from Steel,'_ she reminded herself.  She analysed the container and replaced it.

"Nothing," she reported.  Though she was beginning to wish she had not drawn his attention to this anomaly.

Steel stood up so fast that his chair fell backwards.  He pointed at a napkin and she analysed it obediently.  The result was the same.  She shook her head and dropped her gaze.

"No!" Steel shouted, slamming his hand palm-down on the surface of the table.  He turned away from her and staggered around for a few steps, his fingers kneading at his forehead.

Sapphire wondered why her lack of success in reading the items was such a problem to him.  After all, the woman had told them they were 'nowhere', so couldn't it be the case that the items in their prison were actually 'nothing'?  Or maybe the Transient Beings had taken away her talent for analysis sometime after leaving the service station.  There were explanations, but her partner seemed convinced that the discovery indicated some greater threat.

He returned to the table and swept it clear in a cacophony of falling objects.  Startled, Sapphire pulled back.  Steel lowered his face to her own and ordered her to read the wooden table top.

She tried.  "Nothing," she admitted, flinching from Steel's fury.  He batted the table to one side in response, easily tearing the metal brackets which bolted it in place.

Something was wrong, something was changing...no!  No, something _had_ changed.  For a suspended moment Sapphire was once again treated to an illusion of herself and her partner in the same room.  Steel threw the table to one side, but she smiled at him, laughing at his frustration, and he was smiling with her now, that beautiful _'What would I do without you?'_ smile.  Her partner, her friend...

It was gone.

Steel remained, though without the smile.  He had produced a thin, metallic pen which he waved threateningly close to her eyes.

"This," he murmured, the lack of volume terrifying.

She took the pen from him and analysed it, knowing that she should gain a great deal of information from it because it was no part of the trap.  It had come from the confines of Steel's own jacket.

She read nothing.

Sapphire's lips trembled as she returned the pen.  She could barely meet her partner's eyes as she shook her head.

_'I have nothing to fear from him.  He has never hurt me.  He and I are connected.'_

"Lies!" Steel roared and flung the pen across the room.  Spittle flew from his mouth as he cried out.  He grasped the back of Sapphire's seat and twisted it to face him.  He leaned over her, dominating her, blocking any movement by the position of his arms.  "I could have thought it of almost anyone," he went on, the words coming so fast they almost tripped over each other.  "Almost anybody except _you_."

Sapphire couldn't have moved, even if Steel had allowed it.  In a handful of minutes her partner had been transformed from the man she knew and trusted into this raving maniac.  Something inside him had snapped and it was beyond her repair.  The cold in her body spread further, to every fingertip, every extremity, as she found herself faced with all of Steel's furious strength.

Her survival instincts were well and truly aroused by this point.  She had to protect herself.  She attempted to paralyse him.  Normally she should have been able to do so easily – her mental powers were greater than his – but he remained unaffected.

He was still talking, repeating her name over and over like a mantra.  His eyes were tight shut and he continued to shake his head sporadically.  She noticed that tears had begun to fall down his cheeks.  Those tears caught at something inside her.  Despite the danger Steel now represented, she couldn't bear to see him distressed.  Without any real volition she edged an arm between herself and her partner and moved it to his face, making contact with his skin and brushing the tears away.

"Steel?" she asked, pouring everything she'd ever felt for him into her tone.

"Oh, Sapphire," he whispered, opening his eyes and looking into hers.  For a few precious moments Steel seemed to return to his senses, because he pressed his cheek into her hand, then twisted to kiss the inside of her palm.

Sapphire wondered about trying to talk but was too afraid that the words she chose would agitate him again.  Instead she lifted her other hand to Steel's face and brushed stray hairs back into place.

Then the precious moments were over.

Steel stood up straight and her wrists were caught in a vice-like grip.  Her partner still wept, but the anger returned to his expression.

"It was _mine_ ," he rasped out.  "Even if nothing in this room was readable, you should have got something from that pen."

"I know it was yours!" Sapphire gasped.  His grip on her wrists was painful.

"Be quiet!  No more lies!"

Given no option to explain herself, Sapphire was finally consumed by the cold.  Her shoulders slumped in resignation, and she couldn't prevent a few hopeless tears of her own from falling.

"You see," Steel went on, "I know how you've been lying to me.  You aren't going to help me find a way out of this trap because you don't even belong in it, do you?  When will they be back for you?  Or can you leave at any moment?  Just fade out, as though you were 'porting back to the Hub?"

Sapphire wanted to shake her head in denial, but all she could do was gasp a sob.

"You want to leave me here.  Alone.  You never cared about our partnership, our duties, our success – it's always been leading up to this, hasn't it?"  Steel turned his head to his shoulder and managed half-successfully to wipe some of his tears on to the fabric of his jacket.  "Well off you go, then.  Go back to the Transients.  Or Silver.  Or whoever it is you want to be with instead of me."

Sapphire could no longer look at him; she closed her eyes in denial.  The chance to hide from Steel's angry expression gave her some small strength.

"Steel, please don't do this," she tried.

"I _loved_ you!" he thundered, and she squeezed her eyes shut more tightly.

When the echoes died away she risked a cautious look at Steel.  He moved his face closer to hers, angling it as though he were moving in to share the intimate kiss, the lovers' kiss, that had always seemed imminent but never quite arrived between them.  He stopped before his lips met hers, just barely, and she felt his breath on her skin.

"I loved you," he repeated more quietly, and unclenched his hands from Sapphire's wrists.  He slid his hands up her arms and over her shoulders.  She knew what he intended and made no attempt to arrest his movement.  If her partnership with Steel was lost to this madness then she had nothing left to fight for.

"My heart...my heart is _broken_ ," he whispered, his voice that of a lover though his eyes still blazed with rage and loss.  Steel's hands circled her neck and she felt him begin to squeeze.

In the few seconds she had before the world faded to blackness, Sapphire studied her killer's face with something that verged on detachment.  This was Steel.  This was her partner, her friend.  He looked the same as always.  How had everything gone so wrong?

Unable to speak, her last act as one of the living was to send a message of forgiveness through the link she still shared with him.  If her death was the only thing left that might help him recover, then die she would.

The spots in her vision spread like ink-blots to form a uniform black.  The bruising pain of Steel's squeezing grip at her throat was overwhelmed by the desperate demand for air from her lungs.  It hurt.  It hurt almost beyond her ability to process the sensations.

Dying took a longer time than she'd have anticipated, but eventually, thankfully, Sapphire slipped away.

~~~

A man and a woman stood before the window in a brightly coloured café.  Their view consisted not of a road, nor a car park, nor any earthbound location, but of bright pinprick stars and dark, empty vacuum: the infinity of space.

They were surrounded by this void, with no means of leaving the small pocket which sustained them.  They had been lured, trapped and finally imprisoned.  The last, mocking words of their enemy had chilled them to the bone.

_"This place is nowhere.  And it's forever."_

The man's name was Steel and he turned to his companion with hopelessness in his heart.  He was frightened and desperate, and he knew that both he and his partner were now pawns in a game being played by higher authorities.  Sapphire did not respond to his silent request for support.  She stared out into the black void, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

For a moment, confusion sparked in Steel's mind.  Something was wrong.  Something did not fit.

The moment passed.

He studied Sapphire.  She was everything to him now, though he couldn't have admitted that fact to anyone, not if his very life depended on it.  But Sapphire knew.  They were connected at such a fundamental level that she understood every single element that made Steel the man he was.  He let his gaze flow over her face, seeking comfort in her familiar strength and beauty.

Steel bit back the panic which threatened.  Was this it, then?  After all they'd achieved, all the perils they'd survived, this was the place it had to end?  A small café which wasn't even real, with no means of escape and no hope of rescue?

How long would it take for them to die?  Their bodies were robust and adaptable, with few of the human vulnerabilities that their form suggested.  The small amount of oxygen they required was provided and didn't seem to be reducing with time.  They wouldn't suffocate.  The temperature was comfortable; they were in no danger of freezing despite the proximity of the surrounding vacuum.

There was food and water if they needed it.  And they didn't really need it.

So what did they have to look forward to?  Empty hours becoming empty days and months and years.  No hope and no diversion.

The sight of Sapphire's profile prevented Steel from sinking further into the depths of despair.  He wasn't alone.  That was a great comfort: a selfish one, given that he wouldn't have wished this fate on Sapphire in a thousand years, but her company would steady him and keep him from falling apart.

She was everything to him.

"Sapphire," he whispered, needing her to look at him.  They could fight the hopelessness, but only together.  She turned to him at last and he smiled.  The smile was not returned, but in the circumstances he could understand why.  Sapphire stared at him, as beautiful as ever, serene, almost regal.

Steel realised that he wanted to hold her.  Correction.  He _needed_ to hold her, to gather her into his arms and exorcise the despair through her warmth and proximity.  He raised a tentative hand to touch her arm, hoping to transmit his need without having to go through the embarrassment of giving it voice.

She stepped away from him.

Something cold and painful creased in Steel's gut.  His arm dropped back to his side and a wounded confusion crept into his expression.  "Sapphire, what's wrong?"

Now that his own smile had vanished, her lips curled upwards.  Steel watched as a sly smirk of malice appeared on Sapphire's face.  He had never seen her look this way before; it unsettled him.  She offered no answer to his question and swept her gaze over his entire frame, head to toe, before returning to his eyes.  Her body language was scornful.  Contemptuous.

Increasingly distressed, as his final comfort was snatched away from him and the hopelessness intensified into desolation, he reached for her once more.  She had never refused his touch before.  It was Sapphire herself who'd taught him not to shy from his tactility.

She stepped backwards again and this time her upper lip twitched in an unmistakable sneer.

This couldn't be happening.  This was Sapphire, his closest friend, his longest-standing ally.  She knew him better than he knew himself, and she was always there for him.  She was everything to him!

"Sapphire?" he repeated, ashamed by the tremble in his voice.  Still she didn't answer, but her gaze flicked to one side, away from his face and over his shoulder.  Steel spun around to see what claimed her attention.

"Silver," he murmured.  He hated the sound of the name on his own lips.

Because there he was.  The dashing Technician was leaning against the door frame, his eyes dancing licentiously over Sapphire's figure.  Steel spun back to face his partner.  Sapphire wet her lips with sensuous intent, her gaze rapt on Silver.

The pain in Steel's gut spread until it consumed his whole frame.  He watched helplessly as Sapphire walked towards Silver, swinging her hips and ravishing him with her eyes.  When she reached him she stretched one slender arm over Silver's left shoulder and took a firm hold of his head, then she turned back and gave Steel a single triumphant smile before pressing her mouth against Silver's and allowing herself to be lifted into a passionate clinch half-supported by the nearest dining table.  Her thighs parted as far as her dress allowed.  Silver leaned over her, dipping her back, all ravenous hands and mouth.

Steel stood and watched, immobilised by shock.  The scene playing out before him seemed to make some terrible kind of sense.  He'd always been jealous of the easy flirtation between Sapphire and Silver, but he'd tried to convince himself that his jealousy was unnecessary.  He and Sapphire were so close; he would have known if she'd taken a lover.

He _should_ have known.

He felt like a fool.  Watching them indulge in what rather amounted to foreplay, Steel grew well acquainted with the self-loathing that comes with rejection.  As Silver's roving hand slid under the folds of Sapphire's dress and crept up her thigh, Steel fought the urge to cry out in denial.

She was everything to him, and he was nothing to her.

He realised that he wanted to inflict pain.  Not on the two lovers dangerously close to consummating their passion before an audience, but on himself.  Steel knew now that he was low: unspeakably low.  He was unworthy of Sapphire and that was why she'd discarded him.  He deserved only this pain and humiliation.

A blink, and tears fell unheeded down his face.  He made no sound, unwilling to offer any distraction.  He could only stand and watch.

She'd been everything to him and now he had nothing.  He hated himself for being so weak.

Sapphire pulled breathlessly away from Silver.  Her lipstick was smeared over both of their mouths, and her insistent fingers had unknotted his tie and unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt.  She smiled at her lover.  He smiled back, stepped away, helped her to stand.  She straightened her dress then turned to look at Steel.  His heart broke as he saw the way her expression changed to disgust as soon as she met his eyes.

"Come on, lover," she whispered to Silver.  "Our work is done and it's time to play."

Silver smiled at Sapphire and reached for her again, pulling her against his body as he glanced with what looked like pity at Steel.  They faded out of the café until Steel was finally alone.

The agony of loss was intense.  Still frozen in place, Steel tried to catch his breath.  His efforts resulted in a muffled snort which made him sound childish and pathetic.

How he detested himself.

He was alone now.  This was the trap, and Sapphire had willingly been used as bait.  She and Silver had left and would be happy.  She would forget that an agent named Steel had ever existed.  This was all that was left: only the room and himself.  And the room didn't even exist, and he loathed himself.  So there was nothing.

Steel raised his arm and used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe at the moisture on his face.  He knew what he had to do, now.  This pain could be halted.  The loneliness could be assuaged.  He walked over to the café's counter, steering well clear of the table on which Silver had ravished Sapphire.  Behind the counter were the normal tools of the café trade: a cash register, some provisions, crockery, glassware, cutlery...

Knives.

He wrenched his jacket from his shoulders and tossed it to the floor, then he tore at the cuffs of his shirt.  He pushed the sleeve up his left arm and studied his wrist for a moment.  The cut would have to be right.  If he didn't sever the vein, his body would have the chance to repair the damage before he died, and Steel was unsure whether he could be brave enough to do this twice.

A sob wracked his body and his face tensed in pain.  Everything inside him felt ragged and torn.  He wanted to call out Sapphire's name, beg her to come back to him, but he knew he was unworthy.  She deserved better than him.  Steel reached for the sharpest knife he could see: a large chef's knife with a wooden handle.  He tested the blade and smiled when it drew blood with the merest whisper of a touch.  Here, finally, was a caress he would not be denied.

He moved over to the sink and readied his left arm across it, using the point of the blade to trace the location where he would make the gash.

There was nothing.  He was nothing.

Better off dead.

Calling upon all his strength, Steel raised his knife-hand and slashed it down.  He immediately dropped the blade and sank to his knees, holding his bleeding arm over the sink despite the fact that the pressure in the vein caused blood to spray over the tiles and the floor and the work surface.  It hurt, but was as nothing compared to the pain of his broken heart.

In seconds he felt dizzy and tired, so he rested his head against the cool enamel of the sink.  He managed to smile through his tears.  Not long now.

Steel waited in a daze for his death.  After a time the pain dissipated and he drifted into darkness.  His final thought was of an expression he'd heard among the humans of Earth:

Cold comfort.

He thought perhaps he understood, now.

~~~


	6. Going Mental

The first thing that Sapphire became aware of was the chill.  This place, wherever she might be, was cold.  Without opening her eyes she sensed stone walls and loneliness and the distant echoes of suffering.

She wasn't alone.  Another mind was close by: a sensitive mind, a mind like hers.  On reflex, Sapphire reached out to contact the owner but as she drew closer she tasted the taint of another power and backed away.

She knew she'd been unconscious.  Where she'd been brought, she had no idea.  Whether she was amid friends or enemies, she couldn't tell.  Worst of all she couldn't recall her last memory before losing consciousness.  Her head was full of a swirling mixture of terror and desperation.  All this left her fundamentally unnerved.

She breathed.  Breathing hurt.  She didn't know why.

Sapphire's childhood was centuries distant, but she found herself recalling the sharp tang of childish fear.  To be afraid of the unknown, of the dark; to close your eyes and decide that this act rendered you invisible and untouchable: all this flooded back into Sapphire's thoughts.  And while it was necessary, now, to open her eyes and assess her surroundings she was held back by the desire to hide.  Maybe if she refused to see whatever this new nightmare might be, it would all go away.

Something else was wrong, too.  Something she'd felt ever since returning to awareness.  She was without some basic part of herself, as though she'd lost a limb.  Where there had once been understanding and support and strength and union, there was only a void.

It hurt.  It hurt more than her painful breathing.

As she examined this internal gap, memories began to emerge.  She remembered a partner, a man.  They had shared a connection.  Together, they could have faced anything.

Steel.

The moment his name appeared in her thoughts, other memories swept her into a torrent of pain and fear and loss.  The café, the trap, Steel's madness: all of it claimed vivid precedence over any other thought.  The memory of his hands squeezing her throat reminded Sapphire that she should be dead.  At least it explained the physical ache at her neck and the spiking agony that accompanied each inhalation.

As these thoughts settled she sat upright and opened her eyes.  It took a frightening few moments before Sapphire could focus on her location.  As grey, blurred images gained clarity around her she realised how vulnerable she was.  How incomplete.

She sat on a wooden pallet, covered with a coarse wool blanket.  She still wore the dress from her last assignment, though her stockings were laddered.  Sapphire looked around.  She was in a small room with no window and a single door.  The walls had been roughly plastered but stonework showed through in many places.  The floor was dirty and covered with debris.  A battered wooden table stood against one wall and a lone chair was drawn up to it.  The whole room was lit by a single lightbulb that dangled from a hook in the ceiling, its wiring exposed, tacked across beams above.

The owner of the mind she'd sensed was sitting in the chair and looking at her.  Sapphire recognised the mind, now, if not the form.

"Topaz," she said, or at least tried to say, but the word sounded rough and guttural.  Sapphire drew a wary hand up to the ache around her neck and gingerly touched the painful area.  The lightest pressure of her fingers confirmed the presence of severe bruising.

This seemed to make everything that had happened _real_.  Sapphire tried not to let the discovery break her resolve.  It was important that she remain strong and focused.  Steel had tried to kill her, and she'd lost her connection with him.  Yet she was alive.  That had to be better than the alternative.

Didn't it?

"Welcome back, Sapphire," said Topaz, standing up from her chair.  Sapphire shrank back, remembering the taint around that mind.  More of her recent memories were returning: the investigation with Silver at the service station which had revealed the presence of the Transient Beings.  Although Sapphire could not remember why, she had the strongest feeling that Silver had demonstrated his treachery.

Topaz did not move closer after Sapphire backed away.  The expression on Topaz's face was actually rather sympathetic.  Sapphire frowned in confusion.  They were supposed to be on opposite sides, weren't they?

"How do you feel?" Topaz asked her.  The sound chased away the ethereal quality of the location and Sapphire reached out to touch the pallet and then the wall.  "Your neck must hurt."

Sapphire nodded, afraid of speaking again.  The fragile state of her voice was too present a reminder.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you heal it," Topaz went on.  "We're on minimal power for the time being.  None of us are using our skills.  We're..."  She cast about for the right expression.  "We're lying low," she finished with a small smile.

"Why?" Sapphire croaked.

"Well, we've – that's my group of associates..."

"The Transient Beings," Sapphire whispered.

"That's them.  Anyway, we've made a bit of an enemy."  She stretched out an arm, indicating the room.  "Hence the less than decorative surroundings."

Sapphire managed to convey her confusion without the need to question further, and Topaz sat back down on the wooden chair.

"I suppose I might as well tell you.  Good a time as any."  Topaz paused before starting her tale.  "We were sent from the past, into the present.  We couldn't move like that before, you know.  The, er, price of our release was to capture you and your partner."  Sapphire nodded, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered Steel's rage.  "It was to be a test.  We were to place you in a temporary prison and then ask you to join us.  Your recent assignments had concerned some of the high-ups.  You and Steel were considered mavericks.  They had doubts about you."

"Dewerton railway station," rasped Sapphire, as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

"Sorry.  I don't know anything about that," Topaz replied.  "So anyway, we were hired to capture you and maintain the prison until the authority was convinced of your loyalty, either way.  But we didn't get that far.  As soon as you and Steel were both in the trap, our leader – you encountered that particular Transient Being at the service station, remember?"  Topaz waited for Sapphire's nod.  "Good.  Well, our leader discovered there wasn't to be a test after all.  We'd been tricked.  Used.  Just to incapacitate you and Steel, so the authority could destroy you and blame your deaths on us."

Sapphire froze.  Topaz's words rang so frighteningly true that she could not disbelieve them.  It was the perfect way for the organisation and those higher up the chain of command to get rid of two agents who had become far too independent.  To destroy them openly would cause considerable dissension in the ranks.  But to disguise their destruction by using the Transient Beings: _that_ could play out as a tragic sacrifice rather than execution.

Topaz finished her summary.  "Fortunately for you, we decided to rebel.  My lot don't take kindly to being manipulated.  You and Steel may have belonged to the organisation which fought for our imprisonment, but you're competent Operators who simply managed to get on the wrong side of certain powerful figures.  We saw something of our own situation in your plight.  So our leader went back to the prison we'd made for you, before the authority arrived to destroy you.  The intention was to extract you.  Offer you a place with us or at the very least get you a head start on your enemy.  Only our leader – it found...well.  Quite a mess when it got there, actually."

"What...?" Sapphire managed to whisper.

Topaz paused before offering the details.  "It found Steel hunched up in a corner, wringing his hands and biting his tongue so hard that there was blood all over his mouth.  You were on the floor next to a toppled chair."  Topaz shook her head.  "Our leader thought Steel had killed you for one horrible moment, but you were still alive.  Just barely.  So it brought you both here."

"Where is Steel?" Sapphire asked.

"He's in another part of the building.  Nitro's watching him.  It's all right.  We won't let him anywhere near you until he regains his senses."  Topaz stood and walked all the way over to the pallet, where she pressed Sapphire's shoulder gently until she was lying down, then covered her with the blanket.  "You've had a rough ride.  Get some rest.  You're safe here for the time being."

Sapphire watched, still wary, as Topaz moved away again.

"Oh, and I'd advise you not to draw too much power, for now," Topaz added.  "Apparently the authorities are pretty furious about the way you and Steel slipped through their grasp.  They're on high alert for your recapture.  So we really don't want to attract attention to our location, do we?"

Topaz left the room, and Sapphire let her eyes fall closed.  She needed time to think through the information she'd been given.  She needed time to heal.  But would there ever be enough time to grow used to the raw-edged hollow inside which reminded her constantly of the fact that she was alone?

~~~

Topaz went to her leader's side on leaving Sapphire's cell.

"She's awake," she stated without preamble.

"Coherent?"

"Yes.  Surprisingly."

"Does she have the correct memories?"

"Oh yes."  Topaz allowed herself a smile of satisfaction.  "She even talks as though someone has just tried to strangle her.  And she flinched when she touched her neck, like there was bruising.  She really believes."

"Good," the Transient crooned.  "Did you lock the cell?"

"No I didn't."  At the flicker of anger which crossed her leader's face, she added, "We're all supposed to be on the same side now, remember?  Locking her in wouldn't exactly be the act of an ally.  Everything else besides, a simple physical lock wouldn't be much of an obstacle for her."

The leader thought for a moment then nodded in agreement.  "Very well.  But you'd better get back to the cell and watch her.  She's a clever one, is Sapphire."

~~~

Steel awoke suddenly.

He had slipped from unconsciousness into a rare sleep, haunted by dreams of Sapphire and Silver and their mutual passion.  When the dreams became too much for him to tolerate, he dragged himself from slumber, waking with a shout of denial.  His body adopted a defensive stance.  When he realised he was alive, awake and crouching in a room which was unknown to him, his aggression left him and he stared around in confusion.

The room was empty except for the pallet on which he'd slept.  It was cold, and he was in shirt sleeves.  Well, a single shirt sleeve.  His left arm was unclothed, but for a bandage which bound him below the elbow.  At once he remembered the blade opening his vein, the blood coating the white enamel sink, the dizziness and nausea.

He'd failed.  He'd made his choice, and he'd failed.  One more failure to add to the others.

His arm throbbed and he staggered back to the pallet, picking up the blanket there and wrapping it around his shoulders.  His sleeve had obviously been torn from the shirt by somebody; the same somebody who had dressed his wound.  He supposed it had been...messy.  Spots of his blood were apparent on the rest of his clothing.

He shuddered.  He'd wanted so desperately to die.  Perhaps he still did.

Sapphire and Silver.

He realised, as he considered his partner – _former_ partner – that he'd lost his link with Sapphire.  The connection which had always been no more than a thought away was gone.  Severed.  This loss hurt far more than the throb in his arm.  Steel hadn't even realised how much he drew on that link for support and comfort until it had been taken from him.

His head jerked up as a knock came at the door to his room.  That was a surprise.  He'd assumed he was in a cell; the crumbling walls and freezing air hadn't implied safety.  Unsteadily he clambered to his feet, still clutching that woollen blanket.

"Come in," he ventured, uncertainty in his tone.

The door opened and a familiar figure strode in.  It was Nitro: an old friend and colleague, a thoroughly dependable ally...right up until the moment he'd deserted the organisation and joined with the Transient Beings.

What was Nitro doing, knocking on prison cell doors?  And why did he look like he'd grown a good foot in stature since the last time Steel had seen him, so many years ago?

"I'm glad you're awake," Nitro said.  "You had us worried for a time, back there."  His gaze tracked down to Steel's left wrist.  "You lost a hell of a lot of blood.  You're healing more slowly than usual.  Afraid you're almost down to human standards."

"Where am I?" Steel asked, trying to assert as much authority as he could.

"Cumbria," Nitro replied, gesturing the end of the pallet with a questioning glance.  At Steel's nod he lowered himself down to sit.  "Northern England.  The present."

"And how did I get here?"  Steel remained standing, though the room was threatening to spin.

"Our leader brought you here.  Found you in the pocket we created, unconscious and just about dead."

Steel sank down on to the pallet, exhausted by this confirmation.  He _had_ been in the café.  He _had_ seen Sapphire with Silver, and he'd tried to end his own life.

"We brought you back and patched you up," Nitro added.  "Touch and go, there, for a while, but seems like you're pulling through."

"Your leader might not have been doing me a favour," Steel muttered.

"Oh, come on Steel!" Nitro admonished.  There was actually concern in his expression.  "You may feel that way now, but give yourself some time, at least.  Perspective is a wonderful thing."

Steel wondered about launching himself at Nitro in a fit of anger, but discarded the idea when he recognised how very tired he was.  He rubbed at his face with his good hand and sighed.  "Perhaps."  Steel swallowed and his voice tightened.  "Where's Sapphire now?"

"She's in a cell at the other end of the building."

"In a cell!"  Steel was surprised enough to look at Nitro.  "Aren't you on the same side?"

"Actually, no.  We aren't."  Nitro shifted his position to face Steel.  "Guess I should bring you up to speed.  Here's how it is.  In return for the ability to break out of the past, our remit was to capture you and Sapphire.  You were both to be tested by a higher authority than any of us here.  They weren't sure of you."

"Tested how?" Steel asked.

"You were to be offered–"

"Offered a job with you again," Steel supplied as the strategy became clear.  "But this time with something else looking on and listening to our answer."

"Right.  That was the deal.  We just had to get you into the trap."

"And if we gave the wrong answer, you could safely destroy us on behalf of this authority and there would be no repercussions in the organisation."

"Actually we were never hired to destroy you."

Steel barked a short laugh.  "Of course you weren't!  You and your associates are well known for your kindness to the aged and your charity work with orphan children."

"I think you've mixed us up with some other group," Nitro said mildly.  "Steel, I know this is hard to believe – we never had any intention to destroy you.  But the authority did.  They lied to us about their plan.  There was never going to be a test.  They just wanted you in a place outside the organisation's jurisdiction, where you were powerless to protect yourselves."

"They wanted us sitting ducks," muttered Steel.

"No.  They wanted _you_ a sitting duck."  Nitro sighed heavily.  "Sapphire was working with them."

" _What_?"

"Think about it, Steel!  Sapphire had nothing to do with my own group's plan, so how did she and Silver manage to leave the café?"

Steel thought about it.  The thinking made him feel winded.  Sapphire's betrayal on a personal level, choosing Silver over himself, had hurt him deeply.  Her betrayal of him as an agent, however, left him convinced that the jaws of death would have been sweetly welcoming.  He ached for them.  If only he'd died in that café, he would never have had to learn of this duplicity...

Nitro was continuing the tale.  "Thing is, though – we found out about the plot.  We found out that we were being used as scapegoats to take the blame for your destruction.  And seriously – what did we have to gain from that?  The Hub would have been out for our blood, wanting to destroy those who'd killed Steel, a fine and upstanding member of their community.  Never mind that it was a higher authority that really caused your death.  We decided we weren't having it.  Our leader, the Transient you encountered at the service station, it went back to the café to retrieve you before the authority showed up.  It was surprised to find you there alone.  Fortunately we captured Sapphire and Silver before they got back to the Hub."

"How?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How did you capture Sapphire and Silver?"

Nitro's brow creased for a moment, and Steel was gripped with the certainty that Nitro knew a lot more than he was letting on.

"We have another recruit," Nitro said.  "Another Hub agent defected to us.  One whose speciality is interdimensional travel.  He rounded up Sapphire and Silver and dragged them back here."

The explanation made sense.  "Mercury," Steel said, nodding.  "So what happens now?"

"We wait," replied Nitro.  "We keep our heads down and draw no attention to ourselves and wait for you to regain some strength.  Then we'll decide whether our plan should be offensive or defensive.  But don't worry, Steel.  Nobody here intends you any harm.  And while we're here, they can't get at you.  Get some rest, old friend."  Nitro stood and sauntered over to the door.  "The more of us who can fight them, the better the chance we stand."

With that, Nitro left the room.  Steel listened for the sound of footsteps and was surprised to hear them, walking away down a passage.  He wasn't being guarded.  He entertained the idea of exploring the building, but remembered how simply standing for a few moments had left him dizzy and drained.  So he swung his legs back on to the pallet and lay down, aware that Nitro had been right.  Until he recovered his strength he was no use to anyone, least of all himself.

And the gnawing hole where Sapphire's essence had once touched him served as a permanent reminder that he, himself, was all he now had.

~~~

"I had to tell him about Mercury," Nitro told his leader as he reported Steel's return to consciousness.

The Transient frowned.  "Why?"

"He wanted to know how we had 'caught' Sapphire and Silver.  It was the best explanation I could come up with."

The leader nodded its understanding.  "I see.  Good.  Quick thinking.  And Steel now believes we have Sapphire and Silver captive?"

"That's right."

"And that we're his only allies?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Nitro said.  "I've laid the foundations, but it'll be some time before Steel overcomes his natural suspicions."

The leader smiled.  "Work on him, then.  You knew him before you joined us.  Play on that connection.  Reminisce about old times.  Be there for him."

Nitro smirked.  "We'll be bosom buddies before you know it," he promised, and left the room.

~~~

On the Hub, Silver and Diamond sat with Jet in her retreat, anxiously waiting for any kind of news.  Hours had passed since Mercury's escape and the authority had offered no new information on the traitor, nor on the supposed location of their two missing agents.  The only thing that they knew for certain was that the prison which Silver had visited had gone.

Diamond had attempted further contact, stretching with his senses to any and all locations where Sapphire and Steel might be held, but had drawn a blank.

The three waited together, seeking comfort from the presence of friends.  At first they'd tried to pass the time with conversation, but their concerns had made talking too difficult.  They sat in silence now, and Silver was aware of a growing conviction that as each hour crawled by with no further news, the likelihood of a safe return for their two colleagues diminished.

~~~

While their associates watched the two captives, the leader and its fellow true Transient waited in a central room.  They discussed further details of their plan: how to maximise the damage to the Hub when revealing Sapphire and Steel's 'defection', how to rid themselves of their current dependence on Mercury's device in order to travel forward in time.  How they might recover their two Transient brothers from the far-flung past.

They considered the times that were to come; the atrocities they might indulge; the revenge they could seek.  There were centuries of impotent incarceration to make up for.

Their attention was eventually drawn to a disturbance within the corridor of time, and their eyes flashed a cold blue as, in unison, they reached out to this irritant and pulled it close.  Mercury's form coalesced between them.  As soon as his body materialised, the diminutive agent collapsed to the floor with exhaustion, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Ah, Mercury," said the leader, paying no heed to the newcomer's crumpled form.  "Just the chap.  This device of yours that we've been using – it's getting to be a bit of a millstone.  We thought you could assist us in coding its function.  Permanently."  The leader tapped its own forehead.  "Up here."

Mercury raised his head, intrigue apparently superseding his exhaustion.  "You can do that?  Integrate the functionality of a machine into your own consciousness?"

"Of course.  So can you, now, in fact.  And when we've done it we'll have time, real space and all other dimensions at our disposal."  The leader turned to its brother and smiled.  "Quite an intoxicating thought, don't you agree?"  It reached into the inside pocket of its suit jacket and brought out the slim box which it handed to Mercury.  "Do feel free to start right away."

~~~

The three figures met in the circular chamber.  The Hub was silent.  Any agents who remained Hub-side had settled in to wait within their own retreats, but the air of anticipation was gradually being replaced by one of resignation.

[We have to do it,] one of the figures insisted.  [We have no idea what Sapphire and Steel might be facing.  They have no means to inform us.  Up against the Transients they could be found lacking.  They can't escape if they are.  We have to activate.]

[How?] asked the foremost authority, its tone suggesting the question was rhetorical.

[Well, one of the Transuranics–]

[The Transuranics cannot be relied upon!] the third figure put in indignantly.  [We only ever use them with fail-safes, and there is no fail-safe in place for this.]

The figure who had spoken first finished its thought.  [One of the Transuranics can send a pulse.  That's all we'd need for activation.]

[Even if the pulse was sent, how do we know it will reach the target?  Two of the Transient Beings were lost at the service station.  We've no idea–]

[We have to make the attempt!] the first figure insisted.  [There is nothing else that we can try.  The only alternative is to stay here and hope for the best.]

The foremost authority broke in before the discussion became an argument.  [Even if we can organise a safe pulse, we need some idea of location before we can attempt activation.  Until we know where they are, staying here and hoping for the best _is_ our only option.]

[So how do we find out where they are?] demanded the first figure.

[The same way as always.  We set the scryers to the task and hope that Sapphire has the strength and awareness to send a signal.]

~~~

Topaz had returned to the room by the time Sapphire awoke.  She felt a little stronger and said as much, taking the hairbrush which Topaz offered and managing to find the will to straighten her hair.  Her neck was still sore and her words rasped horribly, but the main source of her pain remained the place torn inside where once Steel's presence had steadied her.

Topaz offered her some water and she tried to drink, choking as the liquid touched her damaged throat.  Then Topaz insisted on examining the bruising around her neck.  Sapphire sat still and uncomplaining as Topaz did so.  She wondered when it was that she'd become so quiescent.

"How is Steel?" she finally asked in her roughened voice.  She'd heeded the warning about drawing power, wary of the lurking threat of their greater enemy, but had still tried to locate her partner within the building.  She should have been able to sense his position in a heartbeat, but instead had been confronted with a buffeting barrier which smelled the same as the taint she'd encountered around Topaz's mind.

"He's about the same," Topaz replied, done with her examination.  She walked to the table and sat down.  "We can keep him secured and prevent him from doing himself or others any harm, but we can't give him back his sanity on a plate.  He has to find it for himself."

"I could help him," Sapphire suggested.  "I know him better than anybody.  If you let me talk to him, perhaps I can start the healing process."  She tried to draw herself up, to regain some measure of dignity.  "After all, we'll be much more useful in any confrontation if we're both functioning.  At the moment Steel is a liability rather than an ally."

Topaz appeared to consider Sapphire's words.  "I'll discuss it with our associates," she said.  Her use of the word 'our' did not escape Sapphire; she was now being included within this group of outlaws.  "But it may be some time before we can risk you being close to Steel.  Since we retrieved him, the one thing that guarantees he'll fly into a violent rage is the mention of your name.  He's a dangerous man at the moment.  If he hurts you again, we might lose both of you.  That serves nobody."

Sapphire nodded her agreement.  "Very well.  But I believe that I can help.  Tell _your_ leader that."  Very deliberately she refused to include herself in the group of Transients.  "Now, do I get to see some more of this bustling, modern complex, or must I stare at these walls for a few more hours?"

~~~

In the absence of any other pressing task – or, indeed, another means to justify his presence here – Mercury began work on his new device.  It would take the form of a gateway.  The smaller device which he'd originally provided contained the essence of his ability to manipulate dimensions: algorithms embedded in circuitry and something beyond hard-wiring, all combined with the raw power of time gifted to him through the Transients themselves.  Now he worked to encode the functionality of this device into the circuits of the gateway.

Stepping through the arch he was constructing would imprint this functionality on each member of their group's mind.  It was an abstraction he had never before considered, but then again, he'd never before had the power of time's Transients at his disposal.

He'd been updated on the fate of Sapphire and Steel.  The suffering they had endured left him bubbling with glee; Steel in particular had been cold and contemptuous towards him in the time that had followed Gold's demise.  It was always nice to note those occasions when what goes around comes around.

Mercury's own recent fear was forgotten.  Time and distance had convinced him that he'd never been in any real danger from Diamond and his cronies.  Since his experience in the corridor of time, he could recall only being located and extracted rather than those lost hours adrift in a medium he could not control, buffeted by the terrifying creatures and forces which called it home.

Mercury had a distinctly selective memory.

He'd been warned to remain exactly where he was, and to complete the gateway as soon as possible.  It would probably take several days, but that should tie in nicely with Sapphire and Steel's inevitable submission to the Transient leader's machinations: such a nicely finessed little revenge tragedy.

And when those two events aligned, Mercury knew he would never have to be afraid of anything, ever again.

~~~

"How is Sapphire?"

Nitro appeared shocked by the question.  Steel was sitting at one end of his pallet, as he had sat there since he'd woken up.  He felt stronger and less susceptible to the dizziness brought on by his brush with death.  All the events of the last days were being processed in his mind, alongside the gaps which had been filled in by Nitro.  He was beginning to grasp the enormity of the danger he was in.

"Do you really care?" asked Nitro.

Steel lifted his head to meet Nitro's eyes and raised his eyebrows in a gesture of helplessness.  "Yes.  I care."

Nitro shifted as if in discomfort.  Steel wondered why this admission bothered the former Specialist so much.

"She's fine," came the answer.  "I don't think she's very happy at being confined, nor does she like being separated from Silver."  Steel winced at this comment and hung his head again.  "But physically and mentally she's in pretty good shape, I'd say."

"Can I see her?"

Nitro stood up and slapped his palm against the wall.  "You want to _see_ her!  Steel, that woman sold you out to a higher authority.  She offered them your destruction, simply so she could get rid of you and spend time with Silver.  Hell, she even let that slime-ball debauch her in full view of you!  How can you possibly want to see her?"

Steel stood up as well.  "How did you know about her and Silver?" he asked quietly.

Nitro blinked at him.  "What?"

"You said that your leader retrieved me from the café after they'd gone.  How did you know what happened beforehand?"  Steel studied Nitro's expression.

"Steel," Nitro said, matching Steel's understated tone.  "I know you're not the trusting kind.  I understand – hell, I respect that.  A healthy paranoia can keep you alive.  But you're going to have to give a little, here.  At the moment you are still breathing because of us.  You live to fight another day, maybe even depose this authority that's out for your guts, and all because of _us_."

All of which might be true, but it hadn't answered Steel's question.  "Nitro–"

"Listen to me.  I know you're hurting right now.  I know how much she meant to you, but you have a duty to yourself.  Get your strength back.  Recover.  Then, if you want to join us in fighting this-this corruption in the hierarchy, fine.  If you want to take your chances alone, you know, that's fine too.  But stop testing me, because I am not a patient man."

"How did you know about Sapphire and Silver?" pressed Steel.

"I _know_ , because Silver has been talking about little else.  Every time I check on him, he'll make some new comment.  'Don't forget to give my love to Sapphire!'  'Ask Steel if he enjoyed our little floorshow!'  'Tell Steel that Sapphire's thighs really are as soft and smooth as they look!'  Every damn time I go in there, he's mouthing off.  He's full of himself.  And _that's_ how I know."

Steel was quiet, assessing whether this seemed credible.

He was dismayed to find that it did.

~~~

After an unhurried walk through the institution, Sapphire had grown tired and returned to her room.  She hadn't mentioned Steel again, but Topaz had been aware of the sensory probes Sapphire had been sending as she moved around the building.  Fortunately, drawing power at that small level had not endangered the barrier they'd placed between the agents.

Sapphire's insistence about seeing her partner worried Topaz.  She went to her leader and reported this development.

The Transient's eyes grew dark with anger.  "How can she want to see the man who tried to kill her?"  It shook its head, disbelieving.  "It was the one thing she could never let herself contemplate.  It was too hideous even to consider – Steel, turning against her and doing her physical harm.  She should be terrified by the thought of confronting him again."

"I know, but she argued most convincingly," Topaz returned.  "She has it in her mind that she can reach him.  Cure him."  She tut-tutted.  "And if she sees him and realises that he isn't actually behaving like some wild animal–"

"I'm aware of the problem," the leader snapped.

"You should have let them experience the same thing!" Topaz said, riled.  On this occasion the cold eyes of her leader were insufficient to make her back down.  Instead she went further, drawing strength from the indignation she'd accumulated over recent days.  "If they'd had the same nightmare, we wouldn't have to work so hard to keep them apart!"

"They couldn't have seen the same thing," insisted the Transient.  "Steel would never have believed himself capable of violence towards Sapphire.  Sapphire would not have accepted her betrayal of him.  Either way, it wouldn't have worked."

"We should have given them another scenario, then.  Something they'd have both believed."

"Nothing like that would have had the same effect.  We needed that trauma.  They're only vulnerable if the partnership is severed.  They'll never need us if they still have each other.  Now leave me!  I will find a solution.  The plan will remain on course.  Don't concern yourself."  When Topaz made no move, the Transient's head snapped up.  "I said _leave me_!"

Topaz left, bristling at the dismissal.  On her way out of the room she passed Nitro who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  She paused outside the door and smiled in satisfaction as she heard her fellow recruit address their illustrious leader:

"It's Steel.  He wants to see Sapphire."

~~~

Diamond and Jet were summoned from Jet's retreat: another scrying team was being set up.  They made their way to the central chamber.  Jet was aware that the attempt would probably be unsuccessful, but she was happy to try nonetheless.

It had been decided to focus their attention on Earth, since that was the place the Transients had emerged.  This gave them a focus as far as location went.  The other variable, time, required another decision.  The Transients could have taken Sapphire and Steel anywhere within the past but, as they had only recently escaped its confines, it was assumed that the present was the best point to begin looking.

So the scrying pattern was to cover present day Earth.  Yet even if they were correct in these assumptions, nobody could predict specifically when and from where Sapphire might transmit a signal; they could be searching the Americas when she managed to put out a signal from, say, Africa.  In fact nobody was certain that Sapphire could make contact at all.  All the sensitives could do was hope that they got lucky.

But Jet had another plan.  She'd tasted the corrupt residue from the Transients' power.  It was distinctive and obvious.  Steel had once taught her that there was always another solution: something else which could be tried when the usual choices proved fruitless.  That lesson was made all the more poignant now.  Jet hoped against hope that her former lover would be proved right; that she could use his own wisdom to locate and free him.

In the central chamber, the scryers got to work.

~~~

Steel sat alone in his room.  Nitro had left him after lecturing him on trust.  The former Specialist had wasted his breath.  In his entire life Steel had trusted only a handful of individuals, and the one in whom he'd invested the most faith of all had stabbed him in the back.  The last two days had not persuaded him that he should be _more_ trusting.

He was still weak and his arm still throbbed, despite a surprisingly lengthy sleep.  He rested only when his body had suffered physical trauma, and he was unused to the sensation of blacking out for hours at a time.  It had, however, reduced his dizziness enough that could at least stand without staggering.  Steel prepared to take a walk.  After all, if they weren't guarding him, he must be free to leave.

He opened the door and stepped out into a corridor.  Nobody was in sight.  He edged up the corridor to a main passage, one hand on the wall to steady his weakened body.  Cursing his lack of sensory skills, he mentally drew lots to decide which direction to take, and then he turned left.

~~~

Sapphire lay in her room, trying to sleep.  The walk around the building had tired her, more than she would have thought possible, and the ache around her throat was beginning to itch uncomfortably as it healed.

She hoped that Topaz would convince the other Transients that she should see Steel.  She remembered his distress, just before his hands had tightened around her neck.  He had not been acting from cold hatred.  He'd acted from desperation and panic.

If she could convince him that she'd been no part of the trap then there may yet be some hope.  He'd believed that she'd betrayed him thanks to circumstantial evidence.  Perhaps now they were away from that awful café he could remember that she had never betrayed him.  Not once.

Maybe she could even hope that at some point in the future the emptiness inside could be filled with Steel's essence once again.  What was it the humans said?  Where there was life, there was hope...

~~~

"They want to see each other," the leader mused.  "The connection between them is stronger than I'd anticipated."

"Stronger than anyone could anticipate," Nitro said.  "What kind of a man cares about the welfare of the woman who tried to destroy him?"

"What kind indeed?"  The leader frowned in thought.  " I think we'll let them see each other, but in such a way that the illusions remain intact.  Return to your post for now, Nitro.  I will inform you of my solution when the details have been arranged."

Nitro got to his feet and walked out of the room.  He'd rounded the first corner on his way back to Steel's cell when he was surprised by Topaz, who grabbed his arm and dragged him into the next empty room along.  She shut the door behind them and turned to him.

"Our leader is shutting us out!" she complained, as Nitro recovered his poise.  "When do _we_ get to have a say in things?  It used our energy, it used our skills, it used our defection, but– "

"And what did we get in return?" Nitro interjected.  "Power beyond anything we could have imagined back when we were agents?  The ability to change our form at will?  A life free of the repetitive and dangerous duties forced on us by the organisation?  And now, freedom to not only leave the past but soon to be able to travel anywhere, anytime and use our power without restriction!"

"It's not enough!" Topaz said.  "I didn't leave the Hub to become someone else's lackey.  We have to stand up for ourselves, Nitro.  Because if that man–"

"Man?" Nitro enquired with a mocking eyebrow.

"All right, if that _thing_ continues to deny my input into our group's decisions then I will have to consider my position."

"Really?  And if you wanted to leave, if you decided you were no longer Transient, how the hell would you go about it?  Write a letter of resignation?  Return to the Hub and say, 'I'm ever so sorry, I've made a bit of a mistake...'?  Wander off and strike out on your own?"

"If I have to!" Topaz said.  "Damn it, Nitro, doesn't it make you angry?  You're in the same boat."

"Perhaps I'm not like you," Nitro suggested.  "Maybe I don't always have to be the centre of attention.  I'll sit tight for now.  If my opinion changes, you'll be the first to know."

With that he turned and left the room.

~~~

Sapphire slept, and while she slept she dreamed.  She saw the café again; it seemed that there was no escape from its presence, even after it had ceased to exist.

Within the café she sat with Steel, talking.  In the dream she knew she was tired; her head drooped until her chin rested against her breastbone.  There was no sign of madness and paranoia in her companion.  He was Steel, and his presence in her dreams served as an acute reminder of how much she missed him during her waking hours.

The relaxation which comes from sleep, combined with the nature of her dreams, had a singular, significant effect.  The memories of violence and despair which were undeniable during consciousness lost their potency.  In particular, Sapphire's conviction that she had lost her link with Steel was forgotten in a haze of better emotions.

The dream ended as her dream-self slipped into a coma and the memories faded to black.  But the link was in place again, and Sapphire's physical body hummed with welcome as the void was filled.

~~~

As Steel walked he became aware of a kind of itch in his head.  It began as a nagging sensation of having forgotten or misplaced something, and grew into physical discomfort as he made slow progress down the corridors of the former mental hospital.

He'd been out of his room for almost an hour, but it had taken him that long to cover the lengthy corridors which linked the various sections of the building.  Steel was now as far as he had been from his own room.

The itch in his head began to burn.

With no coherent thought he turned into a side corridor, stumbling as his weakness intensified.  Doors lined both sides, but the single room straight ahead, at the very end of the passage, demanded his attention.

~~~

The dream-memories shifted and new images emerged.  Now Sapphire lay on her back along a narrow bench.  She could sense Steel's hand on her face, could feel his connection within her.  It felt as if her own mind was trying to tell her something.

She opened her eyes, desperate to see him.  The dream collapsed and she was alone in the cold stone room.

~~~

Steel's hand shook as he reached for the handle of the door.  For a fleeting instant he'd been filled with the returning warmth of his connection with Sapphire.  As her essence had filled the void, Steel's relief was fierce, but even as he'd revelled in the re-established link it was severed once more.

His fingers touched the brass of the handle and he was alone.

Steel glanced around in confusion.  What had happened to him?  Why was this room important?

Only one way to find out.

~~~

Topaz rounded the corner to see Steel at Sapphire's door.  Her feelings of resentment fled in a wave of panic.

"Steel!"

She was very relieved when he paused and turned.

"Nitro's been looking for you.  He has some news about Sapphire and Silver," Topaz called, saying the first thing that came into her head.  She hurried up the corridor to meet him.  Steel regarded her, disorientation in his eyes.  "Are you all right?"

He appeared to give the question serious thought, then shook his head, sagging hard against the wall.

"Come on," Topaz ordered, her self-control returning.  "After everything that happened it's far too soon for you to be wandering about without some support.  Let's get you back to your room."  She hooked one of Steel's arms around her neck and started back down the passage.

Halfway along, Steel halted and twisted round to stare at the door to Sapphire's cell.  He frowned in confusion but made no further complaint when Topaz resumed their progress back to his room.

They were going to have to move Sapphire now, Topaz mused.  They couldn't risk this happening again.  All her earlier resentment began to return as she realised how close to failure the whole plan had just been.

~~~

Jet had diligently swept the coordinates allocated to her and sensed nothing.  Although the scrying team was to work on a shift basis, with each sensitive retiring as they drained their energy and returning when recovered, Jet simply moved on to other areas.

She was looking for something that the others couldn't identify.  And she found it.

Pinpointing the location was difficult, because the tainted power she sensed was being used to hide and deceive.  But there was the faintest whiff of it in the present, somewhere over northern England.  She nudged Diamond with her shoulder and broke into his own reaching, straining thoughts, to inform him that she might have narrowed down the search area.

Jet sent a silent request that Diamond begin to concentrate on this specific geographic area and timeframe.  Diamond offered no objection.  Jet was glad that she didn't need to persuade him; his senses were stronger over distance than her own.  Calmly, he began to follow Jet's mental direction.

Jet refused to let herself consider the possibility that this breakthrough might already have come far too late.

~~~


	7. The Empath Strikes Back

Another day passed before Sapphire's request to see Steel was approved.  She spent the time recovering her energies and occasionally reaching for Steel, but the closest she came to sensing his presence remained in her dreams.  Thus, it could not be trusted.

When Topaz told her that a meeting had been organised, Sapphire felt apprehensive.  Understandably, she told herself.  She knew that it was important to see her partner; it might be the only way to heal him.  But this was the man who'd tried to strangle her in a fit of violent rage.  Her stomach fluttered with trepidation.

He would be mildly sedated, Sapphire was warned.  For her own safety and Steel's, not to mention the safety of any others in attendance, Steel had been restrained with medication in an attempt to minimise the reaction he would undoubtedly have to her presence.

Topaz also warned her, as they made their way through the building, that Steel remained insistent that Sapphire had betrayed him.  The man waiting to see her, safely under lock and key and the supervision of Nitro, would be almost unrecognisable from her long-time partner.

Nitro met her at the door and Topaz turned away, to head off down the corridor.  Sapphire was annoyed with herself when she realised that she had felt reassured by Topaz's presence.  Still, needs must.  She took a single deep breath and entered the room.

Steel sat on the floor in a corner, his knees drawn up beneath his chin.  He didn't look up as she stepped inside, his gaze fixed on a small item which he twisted and pressed between his fingers.

It was one of the pawns from the chess set in the café.

Sapphire shared a nervous look with Nitro, who closed the door behind them but stayed in the room.  Sapphire reached for a chair and sat down, keeping her distance from the hunched wretch in the corner.  As Nitro settled against the wall, slightly closer to Steel than she was, she became aware of the noise her partner was making.

He hummed, low-pitched and in time with his breath.  No tune; no proper rhythm.  Just a noise.

Everything about Steel left Sapphire unnerved.  She had hoped – unreasonably, perhaps – that simply seeing her again might have a recuperative effect.  Instead he barely seemed to notice her presence.

"Steel?" she said, as gently as she could.

He didn't even look in her direction.  Sapphire reached out with her mind to try to touch him but came across the same Transient barrier she'd encountered with Topaz.  Since this, at least, was a battle she could fight, she snapped her head round to face Steel's keeper.  Her roughened voice barked a question:

"Nitro, why are you shielding his mind?"

Nitro looked startled, before he shrugged.  "We've been shielding it since he came here."

"Drop the shield," Sapphire said.  "I want to contact him mentally."

"I can't."

"Do it!" she ordered.  "It might be the only way I can reach him."

"I don't mean I won't, I mean I _can't_ do it.  Not without the others."  Nitro shrugged at her.  "Look, treat this as a preliminary meeting.  Talk to him.  See if you can get him to respond.  I'll talk to the others about mental contact and we can try that next time.  You know.  If we make no progress now."

This seemed fair enough.  Sapphire returned her attention to Steel.  When he continued to ignore her voice, she knew she had to get closer.  She stood up and took a pace toward him: just a single pace.  Then she stopped.

She detected no reaction in Steel.

"Be careful, Sapphire," came Nitro's low, warning voice.

She stepped closer again, and still Steel remained oblivious to everything except the small chess piece pressed between his fidgeting fingers.  Her final step brought her close enough to reach out and touch.  She dropped to a crouch before him, wanting to lose the difference in height.

Nitro had edged closer, clearly concerned by her proximity to Steel.  Sapphire reminded herself that Steel was no longer the partner she had known for so long; he was damaged and unpredictable.  She looked up and briefly met Nitro's gaze, before stretching a hand to bridge the gap between herself and Steel.  She stopped just short of touching him.

"Steel, can you look at me?  Steel?"

Finally Sapphire perceived a reaction.  The humming increased in volume, as though in an attempt to drown out her voice.

"Steel, I know you can hear me.   Steel, it's me.  It's Sapphire.  I'm here, I'm fine and I want to help you."

The humming became a growl.  Steel's eyes did not move from his chess piece, but the growling grew louder until it became a roar.  As the noise reached its crescendo, Steel's eyes rolled upward in their sockets and came to rest on Sapphire: an accusatory glare.

Startled by this attention, she flinched from the anger and lost her balance, tipping backwards to the floor.  Nitro was there to help her up.  He seemed to think that she should leave, but Sapphire shook off his supporting arm and fell back to her knees before Steel.  He'd returned his gaze to his chess piece.

"Steel.  Please.  Help me help you.  Look at me!"

The room was quiet now.  Steel made no further sound and his hands slowed their incessant fidgeting.  After a few moments of silence he swung his gaze to meet Sapphire.  His eyes burned with hatred and madness.

Though it broke her heart, that look, she maintained her own composure.  She reached across the space between them.

"Take my hand, Steel," she urged.  "Just for a moment, let's forget the horror of the past days.  Take my hand, like you've taken it a thousand times before."

Steel watched her, more uncertain.  Sapphire moved no closer to him.  She had to make him come part of the way.

"Please, Steel," she said.  "We can get through this nightmare.  I won't deny that we're in danger.  But how can I think about facing the world tomorrow, if you won't even take my hand today?"

Steel seemed to respond to this statement.  His eyes became more focused, tracing the outline of Sapphire's features.  He pulled his fingers apart and dropped the chess piece, momentarily distracted by the way it bounced across the stone floor, then he began to move his trembling hands closer to hers.

Sapphire offered no further words.  She remained motionless, waiting for Steel's skin to touch her own.  Despite the danger in their situation, she knew that her desire to feel his contact once more was at least partly selfish.  She missed him.

Steel's fingers grazed hers.  For an instant she let his hands start to slide over her own...

A revelation flashed through her mind.  The truth of it terrified and enraged her in equal part.

She stood up; staggered backwards.  Steel scrabbled across the cell's floor for his chess piece and began to hum once more, apparently distressed by her reaction.  Nitro tried to steady Sapphire, but she jerked away and stalked over to the door.  She pulled it open and left the cell, Nitro right behind her.

"What the hell have you done with him?" she demanded as soon as they were in the corridor once more.

"Well, let's see, we saved his life, kept him safe, stopped him from harming–"

"Don't insult me!" Sapphire said.  "That – in there – that is _not_ Steel.  So I'll ask you again – what have you done with him?"

~~~

Steel was surprised when the Transient leader turned up in person to tell him that he was to be permitted a visit with Sapphire.  He'd seen little of the 'man' from the service station since arriving in the abandoned hospital.  Until this moment Steel had heard nothing more of his request to see his partner, either.

As he walked alongside the Transient, his stomach lurched with nervousness.  What would he say to Sapphire?  What might she say to him?  This was the woman he'd felt closer to than any other person.  The woman who'd betrayed that closeness; who'd bargained happily with his meaningless life.

He walked slowly, with some caution, aware that he was far from physically recovered even though the dizziness he'd been feeling this past few days was growing less and less.  His arm remained bandaged; he wondered whether Sapphire was aware of his attempted suicide.  All in all, Steel knew he was growing stronger.  There would always be scars – it was impossible to suffer that kind of betrayal without accumulating a few – but he was getting there.

The itch hadn't returned, but Steel had not forgotten the flooding relief as Sapphire had connected with him.  So transitory a memory was enough to keep the glimmer of hope from being extinguished.  Steel decided to focus on that glimmer as a kind of preparation for the meeting to come.

It felt like a time for positive thinking.

~~~

Nitro had spent long minutes protesting his ignorance before an angry Sapphire.  Though he wanted to throw his own anger back at her, that would not serve the plan, so he responded as calmly as he could until Sapphire turned and walked away in disgust.  He followed her as she paced through the building, worried he would have to restrain her should she wander too close to other sensitive areas, but she headed straight back to her cell.

After he was confident that she was not about to leave again, he went looking for his leader.  He found the Transient hiding around the corner from the place where a broken and unhappy Steel confronted Sapphire...or rather, the woman Steel _thought_ was Sapphire.  Separated by a force field reeking of Transient power, Steel pleaded with his former partner, begging her to remember their connection.

The Transient leader was working hard to keep from laughing out loud every time Steel tried some new method of reaching this fake Sapphire.  Topaz, playing the part of a disdainful wanton with great zeal, was of course untouched by all the sentimental reminders Steel offered.

It took some time before Nitro was able to command his leader's attention.  Even when it was grudgingly given, Nitro knew that a part of the Transient remained enrapt on the nonsense it had contrived.  He almost dreaded having to make his report.

Discarding any kind of introduction, he simply said, "It didn't work."

The leader's eyes grew cold and its smirk vanished.  "Details," came the order, as the leader grasped Nitro's shoulder and moved them further away from the corridor.

"She knew it wasn't him," Nitro explained.  "She knew it wasn't Steel."

"How?  The image should have been perfect."

"It _was_ perfect.  It fooled her completely.  But when he touched her–"

"You let them _touch_?"  The leader pulled Nitro into an empty room and rounded on him.  "What kind of an imbecile–"

Nitro reached snapping point.  "You left no instructions about not letting them touch!" he barked in response.  "If it was so damn important, why did our colleague let it happen?  I wasn't the one playing Steel; I was only there to play the protector.  Damn it, I will not take this from you!"

The leader's eyes blazed an involuntary ice blue, but they lost their glow when Nitro conjured the same power in his own.  And though Nitro had prepared for an attack, the leader backed down.

"You are right, brother," the leader muttered.  "I was remiss in not specifying the limitations of the illusion."  The Transient sighed.  "Where is Sapphire now?"

"She returned to her cell."

"Her _room_ , old chap.  Cells are for prisoners.  Rooms are for guests.  I think I'd better go and pay her a visit.  I've been putting it off quite long enough."  The leader made for the door.  "Oh, by the way, you didn't tell her what we've done with the real Steel, did you?"

"Of course not," Nitro returned.  Then he smiled.  "What kind of an imbecile do you take me for?"

"See that Steel returns to his room," the leader said as it left.  "And tell Topaz not to enter Sapphire's room until I have finished."

~~~

Steel had run out of things to say.  Sapphire remained cold and untouchable within her prison, and she'd responded to none of his reminders of better times.  Her contempt was like salt in his many and varied wounds.  He wondered at how he could possibly have known this woman for so very long, yet never have really known her at all.

She'd even removed the ring, he noticed.  A silly gift, really.  Sentimental.  But she'd always worn it on the smallest finger of her left hand.  Until now.

Nitro appeared by his side and touched his shoulder.  Steel turned from the barrier which separated him from his partner and walked away, surprised at the comfort he took in Nitro's presence.  When, during the last couple of days, had this turncoat actually become a friend?

"I've lost her," he found himself saying out loud.  "I thought that maybe..."  The words tailed off and Steel shook his head.  "I've lost her."

"Now don't say that," Nitro admonished.  "You never know.  What if they did something to her?  Our enemy?  In order to prime her to be a part of your trap, they might have...I don't know, messed with her in some way.  She might not be herself."

"That's not very likely," Steel muttered.  "But I'll bear it in mind."

~~~

Sapphire sat in her room, frustrated and confused.  The man she'd been taken to see had not been Steel.  Of that she was certain.

Why had the Transients attempted to pull off such a deception?

And yet everything else had made perfect sense.  She remembered the violent events of the café; the damage she had suffered was apparent each time she tried to speak.  All that Topaz had told her was quite credible: the way the higher authority had wanted to dispose of Steel and herself.  The way the Transients had backed out of the deal they'd made, lying low and attracting no undue attention.

So why should this group of outlaws be so concerned by the idea of letting her meet with Steel in the flesh?  Sapphire knew her partner was unstable.  Maybe they thought that she wouldn't be able to tolerate the sight of his madness.  Maybe they thought that Steel's condition would only deteriorate further if he were confronted by her.  But if those were the real reasons – protective reasons – why had they gone to the effort of arranging that charade?  There _had_ to be something more.  Something she was missing.

Sapphire mused on the situation for a long while, before the answer came to her in a flash of horrific inspiration.

They couldn't show her Steel because they didn't _have_ him.

And if he wasn't here with the Transient Beings then he must be dead.  That was why she'd lost the link.  That was why she hadn't been able to locate him in the building.

Steel was dead, and the Transients couldn't risk telling her that news while she was still so fragile.  It was the only explanation that fit.

Sapphire sat very still on her pallet as she retraced her logic, trying to find some flaw.  She couldn't.  It made too much sense.  A knot of loss tightened in her chest.  Her mouth fell open and she let her head fall backwards.  When it nudged the wall and came to a halt, a strangled sob escaped her.  A few moments later, as her lungs demanded air, she drew in a choking breath and then gasped her partner's name.

She felt cold.  This knowledge, this bereavement, it hurt deeply: more deeply than the memory of the madness in Steel's eyes and his crushing hands at her neck.  Steel was dead and she would never see him again.  How was she supposed to live with that awareness?

Sapphire squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the hot tears which escaped.  Her mouth opened wider as she began to scream, soundlessly but with mindless pain.  With no conscious thought she pierced the Transients' barrier and hurled her grief far up and into the Cumbrian sky.

~~~

Jet was taken aback when Diamond jerked in his position.  "No!" he shouted, screwing his features in reaction and shaking his head.

The entire chamber looked to Diamond for some news.  It took long seconds before his focus returned to the Hub.  His distress was brought under control.  He leaned heavily against Jet.  She watched him, impatient for his report.

She was not the only one.  All three alcoves pulsed and were filled.  As the authority arrived, Diamond staggered to his feet and rubbed his face.

"Sapphire is alive," he began.  He looked at Jet, who'd stood up beside him.  Sadly, he took one of her hands.  "She grieves," he said, looking into Jet's eyes.  "I think she grieves for Steel."

"No," Jet found herself whispering.  Diamond's hand tightened around her own.

"Where?" demanded the foremost authority.

Diamond indicated the location on the image of Earth presented.  Jet had begun to tremble.  She hardly heard him finish his report and excuse them both.

The voice of the authority held them as they tried to exit the central chamber.

"We cannot draw any conclusions yet," the figure in the central alcove stated.  "Let us wait until we have factual information on the status of our agents before we begin to grieve ourselves."

But there was no comfort in those words.

~~~

Sapphire was oblivious to the Transient leader when it entered her room.  Quite lost in her grief, she didn't see the speed with which the being came through the door, nor did she note its alarmed expression as it sought her out.  As her grief settled to a slow, aching pulse, she even remained unaware of the blue light which blazed in its eyes as it reasserted the barrier concealing their location.

She looked up only when it sat down beside her.  "What do you want?" she demanded in that now-familiar rasp.  Her face was wet with tears she hadn't realised she'd shed.

"To explain," it replied.

"Then tell me how he died."

"I beg your pardon?"

Sapphire bared her teeth and was pleased to see the leader flinch at the sight of such naked fury.  "How did my partner die?" she growled, punctuating each word with a breath.

She watched the leader frown, and was sure that it was considering its next deception.

"Steel isn't dead," it finally admitted.

"I don't believe you."

"Really, he isn't dead!"  The Transient shifted its position to look at Sapphire.  "It was foolish to present you with an image of him, I realise that now, but I was convinced that if he saw you he would relapse.  He's been making good progress, becoming more coherent.  I didn't want to ruin everything with an emotional confrontation."

It was a flimsy excuse.  Sapphire sneered.  "So why not just tell me that?"

"Because I know what you're like.  You wouldn't have given us a moment's peace if we'd turned down your request to see him.  I thought that the image might convince you to leave him to his recovery.  To concentrate on your own."

Sapphire frowned, confused.  Just as she'd begun to grieve, this being was trying to persuade her that Steel still lived...

"I have to see him," she said quietly.

"Yes, I realise that," returned the Transient.  "Will you follow me, please?"

It stood up and opened the door.  Sapphire clambered to her feet, uncertain.  This all seemed far too easy.  Nonetheless, she followed the Transient as it left the room and started along the passage outside.

~~~

Silver leapt to his feet when Jet and Diamond returned.  He'd waited in Jet's retreat, unable to assist with the scrying and wary of the last time his uselessness had prompted him to take a walk around the Hub.  For more than a day he'd witnessed his two colleagues come and go from here as they recharged their energies between searches.  But this was the first time they'd returned together.

Jet was leaning on Diamond's shoulder.  She was suffering in some way; perhaps she'd drained herself too much, reaching for that elusive signal.  Silver knew that her fear for their absent friends' safety might readily cause her to disregard safe working practice.  He moved aside as Diamond led her to the settle and tried to make her comfortable.

"I found Sapphire," Diamond announced in a strangely dulled voice.

"She's alive?" asked Silver, hope surging.

Diamond nodded, his attention focused on Jet.  He brushed a tear away from her cheek.  "Yes.  At least she was ten minutes ago.  I heard the mental equivalent of a scream of pain."

Silver winced.  "Oh hell, what are they doing to her?"

"I don't think she was suffering physical torment.  Her pain was emotional.  It was grief."

Silver was quiet for a moment, registering the implications.  "Steel?"

"I think so," Diamond replied, a tremble in his voice.  Jet seemed to respond to this exchange with a sob.  "Look, take care of Jet, will you?  I have to get back to the central chamber and try to make contact with Sapphire.  I'm the best Operator for this."

"Of course," Silver agreed, though Diamond was already sprinting for the arch.  He sat down beside Jet and took her hand.

~~~

Steel looked up as Nitro returned to his room.  The company was a welcome distraction.  Steel's fruitless attempt to speak with Sapphire had been hard to endure.  In the short time since, he'd repeatedly backtracked over the one-sided conversation, wondering whether he'd failed to notice anything significant.  Sapphire had not responded to his reminders of their previous closeness; it was almost as though he'd spoken of experiences she hadn't even shared.  He was concerned that he'd failed to present the one memory from their partnership which might at least have prompted some dialogue; that her aloofness might have been partly his own fault.

He'd never been any good at the moments of intimacy and connection.  At one time, Sapphire had been able to tease him about this.

Nitro was respectfully silent as he settled down to wait with Steel, like an onlooker at a funeral.  Steel appreciated his presence.  Maybe he could trust this outlaw, after all.  At least this man had not yet lied to him.  Everything else besides – and whether Sapphire was part of his life or not – Steel was an active target for a powerful higher authority.  He could not hope to fight them alone.  If he were to continue to live, Steel had to admit that the Transients were his best option.

The thought still left a bad taste in his mouth, though.  He reminded himself of the human woman he'd tried to 'save' from the Transients at the service station.  It had happened just days ago, but it seemed like a lifetime.

"What happened to the woman?" he asked Nitro, mainly to distract himself from his recent, pointless reunion with Sapphire.

"Woman?"

"Yes, the human at the garage with your leader.  What happened to her?"  Nitro's eyes flickered around the room, and Steel felt a stirring of further disquiet.  "Tell me!"

"We took her home," Nitro replied.  "Back to 1948.  Couldn't exactly keep her here with us when we found out about the authority's plans.  Anyway, this is no place for a lady."

"Topaz is here," Steel said, still unsettled by Nitro's hesitation.

"Well in case you hadn't noticed, Topaz is no lady."

Steel could not smile in agreement, in spite of Nitro's smirk.  He thought of Sapphire in the dark and elegant dress she'd worn for Mullrine's party.  His partner had looked breathtaking, every inch a lady.  Then again, she always looked good.  She would look good in sackcloth and ashes.

No wonder Silver had fallen for her.

Plummeting further into the depths of misery, Steel sank his head into his hands.

~~~

Sapphire followed the Transient Being as it led her through the complex.  It asked her to step into an empty room.  There was no door to close her in; it had long since been ripped from its frame.  She turned to the Transient in puzzlement.

"I have to protect you," it said through the open doorway.  "Steel believes that you betrayed him in the worst possible way.  I have no idea how he will react when he sees you, but we can keep you separated with a force field."

"You want me to stand in this room and let you pen me in?" Sapphire asked incredulously.

"Yes.  It sounds rather primitive, I know, but it will keep you safe.  We'll bring Steel here to see you."

"I need to make physical contact," Sapphire warned.  "If you want to convince me that my partner is still alive, then I need to touch him."

"I understand.  We can arrange that."  The Transient backed off.  "Will you wait here and let me bring him to you?"  At her terse nod, it spun around and retreated down the corridor.

Sapphire went to the back of the room and slumped against the wall, unable to garner the enthusiasm to complain.  When she considered, she realised that the notion of being trapped and imprisoned once again didn't seem to matter very much any more.

~~~

There was a knock at the door and the Transient leader came in.  Steel looked up, wondering whether the being had come to gloat at the lack of success his earlier confrontation with Sapphire had yielded.  The leader, however, was brisk: all business.

"She wants to see you.  She's asking for you," it said to Steel.

Steel felt thrown.  After all his pleading, Sapphire now _wanted_ to see him?

The Transient spread its arms in a gesture of helplessness.  "It might be my fault.  I let her see Silver."

"I don't understand."

The leader gave an irritated sigh.  "After you and she had spoken earlier, she demanded to see Silver.  Told me that if I was going to make her see you, then she should have something in return."

"And why should that make her want to see _me_ again?" Steel asked, though his skin was crawling at the thought of Sapphire and Silver's brief reunion nearby.

"I don't know, Steel, I wasn't privy to their discussion," the leader bit.  "She and Silver spoke at some length, and when she returned to her cell she was all sweetness and light, asking if she could see you.  Do you want me to tell her you won't come?"

"No!"  Steel surprised himself.  "No, I'll come along."  He got to his feet and watched the leader exchange a glance with Nitro.  "Lead the way," he prompted.

The Transient stepped back out into the passage and held the door open.

~~~

Diamond sat in the central chamber, reaching with his mind.  He was familiar with the taint Jet had learned from Mercury by now, and he'd found the location where the Transients had to be hiding: a location that was steeped in that same taint.  He could not, however, break through the barrier which enveloped the place.  Not from such a distance.  Sapphire's earlier cry had torn this shroud apart, but as much as he strained to hear, Diamond could not sense her any longer.

Eventually he broke off and addressed the central alcove.  "We have to send someone through," he said.  "I can arrange a 'port.  We know where they are.  We need to find out what the situation is.  The only way to do that is on the ground."

"We may do so," agreed the authority.  "But not yet.  Listen a while longer."

"Why?  If Steel is dead then Sapphire is vulnerable!"

"There are at least three Transients at that location – the leader, Mercury, and another that maintained the café Silver visited.  There are probably more.  And we don't have anyone to send through who might be able to stand up to the combined power of a group of three Transients."

Diamond was silent, recognising this truth.  How could they beat the Transients?  They were stronger, both physically and psychically.  They could steal the thoughts from your head in a cold second, anticipating any attack.  Or they could pierce the protections around your mind and render you incoherent with pain.  They still had the device, of course: the one that might send its victim back to a timeframe where they could not possibly survive.

A single agent would be destroyed; a group of agents would be too obvious and might even cause the enemy to retreat.  The Transients could go anywhere, any _when_ , thanks to Mercury.  The Hub might not get lucky and find them a second time.

It was no good.  His superiors were right.  He settled down to listen some more.

~~~

Sapphire stood behind the barrier across the doorway and watched as Steel, flanked by the Transient leader, made his steady way up the corridor toward her.  She immediately noticed that this Steel, unlike the earlier version, wore a bandage on his left arm.  He had no jacket and his shirt sleeve was missing, torn at the shoulder.  The white cotton that remained of the garment was spotted with blood.

Sapphire drew the only conclusion that she could: Steel had tried to kill himself after trying to kill her.  But why hadn't she been told about his injury?

When he was close enough that she could see his eyes, a fist clamped itself around her chest.  There was so much hurt and distrust in his expression.  Steel regarded her warily, and shot a quick look at the Transient leader as though seeking support.

There was a long silence as they stood, watching each other.  Sapphire tried to find their connection again, but the void remained.

Finally, Steel spoke.  "Well?  You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, yes I did."  Sapphire attempted a smile; Steel had reacted with a shocked frown to the sound of her rasping tone.  She tried very hard to be reassuring.  "How are you feeling?"

Steel looked at her in astonishment, as though she had no right to ask the question.  Disturbed, she glanced at the Transient leader, who studied the floor, pretending not to be aware of this highly-charged exchange.

"I've had better weeks," Steel snapped.  He looked her up and down, all narrowed eyes and cold assessment.  Sapphire felt exposed beneath his suspicious scrutiny.

She swallowed and gestured.  "Your arm–"

"Is none of your business!"  Steel looked steadily at her.  He seemed angry and weary but he did not appear to be insane.  "Look, you sent for me.  So tell me what you want or let me go back."

"I want to make sure you're all right."

"I'm fine," Steel told her with a sneer.  "Being targeted by powerful entities for destruction, losing my job, discovering my partner has sold me out, trying to bleed to death – happens to me every day.  I'm just fine, Sapphire."

"Please, Steel, just...just let me touch you."

" _What_?"

Sapphire tried to explain.  "Earlier on, these beings, the Transients, they tried to convince me that one of them was you.  But I saw through it.  So now I need to know if you really are Steel or if–"  She stopped abruptly and drew a steadying breath.  "Or if _my_ Steel, the true Steel, is dead."  She closed her eyes and sighed out her distress until she could compose herself.  Then she opened her eyes and looked straight at him.  "In order to do that I need to touch you.  Would you please indulge me?"

Steel turned around, and Sapphire wondered whether he was going to walk off in disgust.  The Transient Being looked disturbed, poised, tense, ready to overpower her partner.

After a moment, Steel turned back to her and spoke quietly.  "You saw me, but you thought that I was an impostor?" he asked, as if struggling with the idea.

"That's right.  They tried to trick me.  I need to touch you to be sure."

"Do you trust her to do this?"  Steel was speaking to the Transient now; he was asking the leader to reassure him that she meant him no harm!  It would have been laughable had it not been so twisted.

"A single touch," the leader agreed, locking its gaze with Sapphire.  "Let her believe in you."

The leader gestured to the barrier across the doorway and it shimmered once before disappearing.  Sapphire forced herself to remain still, though part of her wanted to step backwards; suddenly there was no protective field between herself and this angry, damaged man.  She swallowed, nervous of touching Steel though she'd done so countless times before.  She steadied herself, looked again with concern upon Steel's bandaged arm, then she reached for his healthy right hand.

She paused halfway, wanting Steel to meet her there.

With excruciating slowness he stretched his hand forward.  His eyes were intent, locked on the arm she had extended as though he expected an attack or a trick.  As he stared, his eyes grew wide, as if he'd seen something unexpected.  Sapphire glanced down but her hand looked the same as it always had.  A little dirty perhaps, but intact.  She still wore Steel's ring, of course: a sentimental gift from a century ago.

He edged closer, allowing Sapphire the chance to study his face.  His skin was streaked with dirt, his hair similarly unkempt, but he seemed otherwise well.  His eyes were dull though, as if he'd considered the situation he found himself in and decided that nothing really mattered any more.  She rather sympathised.

Sapphire looked back at his hand.  His fingers were almost touching her.  She prepared to reach with her mind when contact was made, to analyse his physical make up and discover whether this really was Steel or whether it was just another elaborate illusion.

A moment longer and then they touched.

Straining, Sapphire ascertained that the man whose hand she gripped was indeed her partner.  Relief flooded through her.  Steel was alive!  She reached for his mind but was buffeted back by the Transient taint.  Pressing, she tried to break through it.  She _had_ to reach him and make him understand that she had not betrayed him.

[Steel!] she sent desperately.  She summoned every ounce of power she could and drove through the barrier.  [ _Steel!_ ]

Her partner frowned, as if he was aware of her attempt at communication.  Sapphire gritted her teeth, hoping that her exertion was not apparent on her face.  She needed every second the Transient would grant her.  She was so close, so close to touching his mind.  Steel frowned harder, raising his gaze to look into her eyes.  Nearly, nearly...they were so _close_...

The Transient leader moved forward and pulled Steel away.  In the blink of an eye the force field was in place once more and the tempting warmth of Steel's mind was out of reach.

"No!" she cried, her rasping voice painful at such volume.  "I need more time!"

"You're convinced that this is your partner?" the leader asked, ignoring Sapphire's distress.

She deflated, reaching for the wall to support herself.  "Yes.  This is Steel."  She caught her partner's gaze and tried to transmit all that she had wanted to communicate telepathically simply using her eyes.

"Then this meeting is over."  The Transient grasped Steel's shoulder and turned him around, ready to march them back along the passage.  Steel looked dazed.

"It is _not_ over!" Sapphire called, even as the two of them proceeded away from her cell.

"For now, it is over," the leader said without looking back at her.  "I'll return shortly."

Exhausted – and not a little relieved that she now had proof her grief had been premature – Sapphire gave up on protesting and sank back against the wall.

~~~

Jet had fallen asleep against Silver's shoulder by the time that Diamond returned.  Silver greeted his colleague with an embarrassed smile, but he made no move to extricate himself.

"How's she doing?" Diamond asked.

"She cried, she talked, she fell asleep.  Do we know anything more about Sapphire and Steel?"

"Nothing.  I asked if we could send somebody through and the request was refused.  I suppose they're right – we don't stand a chance against a group of Transients."

"Why not?" Silver returned.  "I mean, if we just sent a two-man team through, one of them a sensitive, we could get some intelligence at least.  Closer to the location, a sensitive might be able to read the situation.  Even if we just found out whether either of our two are still alive, it would be worth it."

Diamond sank into the settle and placed a comforting arm on Jet's back as she squirmed in her sleep.

"And I suppose this two-man team would consist of...?"

"You and me?" suggested Silver with a challenging eyebrow.

"Silver, I'm exhausted.  I've been scrying for hours."

"Then get some rest," Silver advised.  "We'll discuss things some more when you wake up."

~~~

After Sapphire had been taken back to her room, the leader went to inspect Mercury's progress along with its fellow true Transient.  The gateway was developing well.  Mercury rested on a makeshift bed in the corner.

The leader informed its brother of the earlier problems with Sapphire.  They'd been lucky that the fake traumas suffered by the two agents had allowed for a certain amount of common ground, but their reluctant guests had not yet responded to the manipulations as they were required to respond.  More time was needed, and it was time they did not have.  The longer Sapphire and Steel remained in this place, the more likely it became that one of them would discover the nature of this deception.

The leader had been tempted to go along with Sapphire's theory that Steel was dead.  It would have been one less problem to worry about: a Sapphire no longer taking every opportunity to seek out her partner.  Former partner, it corrected.  Such a strategy would, however, have lost them far more than it would gain.  While Steel remained alive and present, Sapphire had the most compelling reason of all not to attempt escape.  In this regard, a maddened and belligerent Steel was of more use to their cause than a dead one.

The Transient leader was beyond rage now.  It was beginning to feel panicked.  If Sapphire and Steel would not demonstrate their allegiance to the group then the plan was finished.  In order to survive beyond the short-term the Transients _had_ to shatter the Hub.

But there was still a chance.  There was one more tactic they could employ, and they needed to do so before Sapphire had the opportunity to review the meeting with her partner and demand further contact.

"She still believes Silver is a traitor, " the leader said.

"How?" its associate asked.  "She doesn't remember Silver's visit to the café.  That memory has been replaced."

"It's true, she can't remember Silver giving them the faulty device.  But she can remember a strong feeling that he betrayed her – I left that quite alone when I delved in her mind.  We can use that feeling."

Its associate arched a brow.  "More trauma?"

"Of course."  The leader managed a smile.  "Trauma is the basis of all good mental manipulation.  And what is worse than the trauma of suffering at the hands of one who was once trusted – or even loved?"

"What indeed?"

"First Steel.  Now Silver.  And, brother, we – as Sapphire's allies and friends – _we_ cannot possibly stand by and allow anybody to hurt her."

"So we finally get to play hero," the other said, and it smiled appreciatively.

~~~

The figure spoke with utter conviction.  [We know where they are.  We must activate!]

[There does seem little alternative,] agreed the foremost authority.

[If we assume Steel is dead–]

[We cannot assume any such thing.]

[Diamond could not have been mistaken.  Sapphire grieved so fiercely that it broke through the Transient's barrier.  There's nobody she would grieve for like that except her partner.]

[Then why did the grief stop?] the foremost pointed out.

[Perhaps the Transients realised what she'd done and closed the barrier...]

[...or she could be dead herself.]  The foremost sighed mentally, unhappy with speculation rather than facts.   [The main point is that we simply do not know.  But it's probably safe to assume that if our agents are alive then they're in no position to complete their assignment.  Therefore you are right.  We must activate.]

The other figure joined the discussion.  [With a Transuranic?  How can this even be under discussion?  This is an inhabited planet!  What about the _life_ there?]

[There, at least, circumstances work in our favour.  The Transients chose a location which is far removed from the nearest settlement.  We can send a pulse through with minimal risk to most of the human populace.]

The foremost authority looked upon the forms of its two fellows.  In the darkness of the central chamber it could yet read every concern and uncertainty in both.  They sought reassurance.  Reassurance was something it could not give.  There was only logic, but it was enough.

[We have reached the point where we have no other choice,] the foremost sent.  [We don't know whether Sapphire and Steel are alive, nor do we know if our target still lives.  We don't know whether the pulse will be successful.  Even if it reaches the target, we have no idea whether it will cause activation.  So much time has passed.  But at this point...at this point we have no other choice.]

~~~


	8. Rise and Shine

All members of the Transient group were summoned to meet their leader within Mercury's working chamber.  The leader described the meeting it had witnessed between Sapphire and Steel, and set out the final plan it had devised to convince Sapphire that she was now among her only friends.  If things progressed well, she would be announcing her new allegiance from the rooftops by the end of the day.

The other true Transient was to take on the appearance of Silver.  Sapphire retained a memory of Silver's betrayal, thanks to Mercury's influence over the real Silver back on the Hub.  She would have assumed by now that Silver was working with the higher authority to destroy her and her partner.

The false Silver would attend her room while she slept, to catch her at her most vulnerable.  Access to her power would be restricted by a concentrated effort from the remaining Transients, overseen by Topaz.  Sapphire's time control, sensory skills and teleportation abilities would be blocked.  She would be helpless.

The false Silver would threaten, intimidate, injure.  Just at the point when destruction would seem inevitable to Sapphire, the leader planned to intercede.  It intended to burst into the room and struggle with the false Silver, putting on a good show for their captive audience.  The false Silver would be vanquished.  Charged with new urgency following this 'evidence' that their mutual enemy had located them, the leader would suggest to Sapphire that she make her defection from the organisation known.  It would point out that this was the best and, perhaps, the only way she still had to damage the Hub.  She would be frightened in the wake of her assault; she could not refuse.

Mercury was to remain out of sight, completing the gateway.  Nitro was to work on Steel and convince him to offer a similar statement of his loyalty to the Transients; Steel was already partly turned.

It was clear now that the two captured agents could offer them no long-term usefulness; they remained too suspicious.  Therefore, once the statements had been extracted and the damage to the Hub had been wrought, Sapphire and Steel were to be destroyed.  The slim device originally provided by Mercury had been cannibalised for the gateway, but the duplication created by Silver and taken from Steel after the confrontation at the service station was intact.

The two agents would be sent back two hundred million years to their extinction in the Triassic period.  And the Transients would step through the gateway to achieve near omnipotence.

~~~

Sapphire was thinking.

When Topaz had spoken of the way Steel – and indeed Sapphire herself – had been retrieved from the café, no mention had been made of Steel's injury.  Sapphire dwelt on the memory of the bandage binding her partner's arm and shuddered.  Surely if Steel had made an attempt on his own life following his violence towards her then Topaz would have mentioned it?

Perhaps he'd made the attempt after being brought here.  But even then, she should have been informed.

She sighed, slumped on her pallet.  She was emotionally exhausted and was fed up with this constant state of confusion.  She needed a strategic thinker to help her work the problem through.

Alas, she needed Steel.

~~~

Steel's head spun with the events of the last few hours.

When Sapphire had taken his hand, he'd honestly sensed a connection with his partner: the Sapphire he'd thought he knew so well.  The one he would trust over and above himself.  It had felt as though the treacherous wanton of the last days had been banished.  His ring had been back on her finger; she'd seemed genuinely concerned for his well-being.  As they'd touched, his mind had so nearly brushed against hers.

With stern discipline, Steel reminded himself that the meeting was the result of some kind of plan Sapphire had hatched following her reunion with Silver.  What she stood to gain from touching his hand was beyond him, but there had to be some ulterior motive.

Her voice, though...

In stark contrast to the earlier meeting, Sapphire's voice had been rough and grating during the follow-up.  She'd spoken as though she'd suffered some injury to her throat, though there was not a single blemish on that slender neck of hers.

What had happened?  He tried to speculate, but speculation was useless when his information was so scant.  He needed to learn more.  An idea came to him out of the blue:

Why not ask her himself?

Steel smiled grimly.  The worst that she could do was tell him more lies, and he was getting used to those.  It was time to be proactive; perhaps because that touch of her hand had reminded him of better times.

He stood up and left his room, heading in the direction of Sapphire's cell.

~~~

Silver paced up and down in Jet's retreat.  Diamond slept on the floor near the arch, his body lying straight and neat.  Jet stirred occasionally on the couch.

He knew that the authority would not permit him to 'port with Diamond to the Transients' base.  They would not risk another two agents.  What his superiors' plans were, Silver couldn't say, but the Transients still needed to be dealt with.

His imagination ran away with itself.  If he could sneak into the location the Transients had made their home, perhaps retrieve the device that had captured Sapphire and Steel, then perhaps he might be able to get back and formulate a plan.  Then the odds would swing in their favour.  So, Silver surmised, he and Diamond would have to undertake a rogue mission.  Perhaps once they'd 'ported off the Hub, Jet could report their intentions–

Silver glanced at the couch.  Jet's eyes were open and were velvety black with power.

[Don't even _think_ about it,] she said with no small degree of warning into his mind.

~~~

Sapphire's cell was empty.

Where, a short time previously, Steel had stood and conversed with his incarcerated partner, he now faced an unoccupied room.  The force field which had kept Sapphire a prisoner had vanished.  Steel stepped inside, sweeping the floor and walls with his gaze for a sign that Sapphire had made this cell her home for several days.

There was nothing.

The sound of footsteps in the passage outside startled him.  Steel's confusion made him cautious and he positioned himself within the cell, pressed to one side of the doorway, hidden from view.  As he listened, holding his breath, he heard an individual approach before the sounds receded.

Steel risked a glance around the doorway.  His stomach flipped.  _Silver_ was walking away down the corridor, very much a free agent; he sauntered along as though he owned the place.

Steel ducked back into the cell and moved into a corner, then he hunkered down into a crouch.  He tried to think.  Silver was free.  Had he broken out?  Or had he been released?  Either way, the higher authority might know Silver's location.  Steel was then struck by a very uncomfortable notion: Silver may even be on his way to Steel's own room, to finish him off, right now.  Was this with the blessing of the Transients, or did they remain unaware of Silver's escape?

Steel clutched his head, overwhelmed by the frustration of all this confusion.  He needed to understand what the Transients' intentions were.

There was only one way to find out.  He stood up and looked around the doorway again.  After he'd confirmed that all was quiet, he slipped out of the cell and followed in the footsteps of Silver.

~~~

"I will not lose both of you, too!" Jet said, as Silver attempted to convince her of the need to go freelance.

"You won't lose us," insisted Silver.  "Look, we're dealing with Transient Beings.  If they are not recaptured then _all_ worlds, _all_ dimensions are at risk!"

"There are higher authorities than ours who can intervene if life is threatened."

"And when was the last time you saw them 'intervene'?  Come on, Jet, you know how it is.  All Diamond and I want to do is a little surveillance.  Case the joint, so to speak."

Jet narrowed her eyes.  "Don't lie to me, Silver – you were thinking about breaching the Transients' base and retrieving a device."

"All right, I was thinking about it!  But I know it's a bit optimistic.  Really, I just want to watch Diamond's back as he tries to get the lay of the land.  At the very least we could learn the status of our agents."

"One agent.  One.  Singular.  Steel is dead," Jet said stubbornly, disguising her grief with anger.

"We don't know that for sure!"

" _I_ know it."  Jet caught Silver's dubious glance.  "I do!"

"Whatever you say," Silver sighed.  "When Diamond wakes up, we'll discuss this with him."

~~~

Silver took a side corridor and vanished from sight, perhaps two minutes after he'd walked past Sapphire's inexplicably empty cell.  Steel crept along and glanced around the corner in time to see Silver trying the door at the end.  The location was oddly familiar.

_This_ passageway again?

Steel remembered: the door at the end, a sense of almost-but-not-quite, the tantalisingly brief warmth of Sapphire's connection before Topaz had found him and led him away.

Sapphire had to be in that end room.  Why was Silver paying her a call?  Were the Transients permitting conjugal visits?

Again, there was only one way to be sure.  Moving silently, Steel made his way down the passage.

~~~

"I'm already awake," said Diamond.  He opened a single eye and used it to glare at his two companions.  "How can I sleep with you two yelling at each other?"

"Sorry, old chap," Silver muttered.  He studied his shoes as his colleague climbed to his feet.

"I'm going to see our leaders," Diamond said, straightening his jacket.  "I think it's about time we got some answers about how _they_ intend to deal with the Transients.  If those answers don't convince me otherwise, I am then going to 'port Silver and myself to Cumbria."

Silver glanced at Jet, who looked about to argue but then closed her mouth.

"You coming?" Diamond tossed over his shoulder, and he strode out of the retreat.

~~~

"Sapphire?"

She was asleep, but the voice broke through her dreams: a softly spoken, seductive voice which oozed familiarity.  Sapphire stirred.

"Wake up, Sapphire."

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked around, her mind and reactions befuddled with sleep.  In front of the door stood–

Sapphire jerked herself into a sitting position.  Her eyes widened with shock.  "Silver!"

"Ten out of ten!"  He moved closer, pausing when Sapphire edged away.  "Now, Sapphire, is this any way to greet an old friend?"

"I don't understand," Sapphire murmured.  Her mind told her to fear Silver's presence, but she had no idea why.  Well, besides the fact that his very manner seemed wrong and sly and somehow malevolent.  "What are you doing here?"

"Doesn't matter," Silver replied.  He drew closer, closer, a feline stalking its prey.  "What matters is that I _am_ here, and I've missed you."

"Don't come any nearer!"  Sapphire's bruised throat contracted with fear.  She struggled to rise to her feet and backed away as Silver continued to approach.  "I'm warning you!"  Damning Topaz's earlier cautions to avoid using her power, Sapphire reached for her talent, preparing to freeze this intruder.

But the taint was all around her and she couldn't break through.

~~~

Steel reached the door and placed his ear upon it.  From inside the room he heard two voices: Sapphire and Silver.

"Come along, Sapphire, I think you've forgotten your manners.  Maybe you've spent too long in the company of Steel."

"You're working with them!"  Sapphire's voice was accusing.

Steel frowned.  This was an unlikely conversation for two conspiring lovers.

"Them?  Do you mean the Transients?"

"No, I do not mean the Transients!  The higher authority!"

"Oh, found me out, have you?"

Steel backed away from the door.  He'd hoped that a spot of eavesdropping might clarify some of his confusion, but it was doing the opposite.  Of course Silver worked for the higher authority.

But didn't Sapphire as well?

Steel considered entering the room.  Sapphire sounded distressed.  Then again, perhaps it was another trap; perhaps Silver had walked past the cell where he knew Steel was hiding, presenting himself like bait.  Within the room Steel would be one against two, and he had no real strength yet.

He shook his head in despair.  Assignments were usually so simple; the enemy was obvious and they just had to find the best way of dealing with it.  Here, he couldn't tell the difference between friend and foe.

Steel moved away, to return to the main corridor.  He would find Nitro and inform him of Silver's liberty.  If Nitro was shocked, that would at least prove the Transients were allies.  And if not, Steel could be certain that he had no friends left at all.

~~~

The central chamber was empty, but when Diamond sent a message to the authority a figure pulsed into view in the left hand alcove.

"Diamond?" it questioned.

"I need some answers," Diamond said.

"Can this wait?  We're a little busy at the moment."

Silver rolled his eyes and tut-tutted.  Jet tried to calm him with a touch to his arm.  He was rather getting to like Jet's tactility.

"No, it can't wait," Diamond said.  "Give me one good reason why I should ignore the danger my friends are in for a moment more!  Persuade me that the Transients pose no threat to all life and order.  If you can do that, I'll leave, but otherwise I want to hear about what we are going to _do_!"

The figure paused for a moment.  Diamond shifted in fractious impatience beside Jet and Silver.

"Your assistance has been invaluable," the figure said with a sigh.  "But the matter is now out of your hands.  This last sortie is our responsibility alone."

"So you _are_ actually doing something?"

"Diamond, we are faced with the freedom of the Transient Beings.  Everything we know and rely upon is in peril.  Do you truly imagine we would ignore this matter?"

"Then tell us!" Diamond pressed.  "We may be able to help.  We _want_ to help!"

There was another pause as the figure considered.  "Very well.  Join us in the ancillary chamber."

With that the alcove winked again into darkness, and the three colleagues looked at each other with confusion.

~~~

Steel burst into his room to see Nitro already inside.

"Hello Steel.  I've been looking for you," Nitro greeted him.  "Where have you been?"

Wondering where he could possibly start, Steel leaned against the wall and recovered his breath.

"I've been to Sapphire's room," he said.  Nitro's expression flickered and Steel knew he'd struck a nerve.  "That's right, not the cell with the barrier.  The _real_ room, the one at the end of the side corridor."  He drew a breath, afraid to blink in case he missed any expression on Nitro's features.  "Tell me – did you know Silver is free?"

~~~

Silver had backed Sapphire into the far corner and stood close, crowding her, invading her personal space.  Her breath came in rapid, sharp gasps.  Silver's eyes looked wrong: cold, cruel and sadistic.  They bored into her skin, leaving her exposed and violated.

Sapphire was terrified.

"Aren't you going to call out to your friends?" he murmured, pressing his body against her own almost gently.

"They are not my friends!" Sapphire replied.  She was aiming for defiance although she felt far from brave.

"I'm afraid right now they're the only friends you've got."  Silver lifted a hand and traced Sapphire's jaw line.  The gesture was simultaneously possessive and threatening.  "But that's all right.  If you don't want to call for them, I understand.  If you _like_ this, I understand."  He leaned closer.  Sapphire sensed his cool breath.  "After all, it's my primary intention to make you feel good.  One last hurrah before I have to hand you over?  There should be some pleasure before the pain, wouldn't you say?"

He was a traitor.  Sapphire didn't know how or why, but she was convinced by the evidence of her own eyes.  Silver had been up to his eyeballs in this plan, and would happily see her destroyed at the hands of the higher authority.  But if he thought he could play upon the affection she'd always had for him, he was wrong.

Sickened by the sight of that satisfied smile, Sapphire found some composure.  She waited until the most advantageous moment and then brought her knee up sharply into Silver's groin.

The damage was minimal, but Silver was startled enough to fall back and allow her some swing on an elbow, which she jabbed into his abdomen.  Silver staggered away, bent double.  Sapphire bolted for the door.  She grasped the handle and pulled.

The door did not budge.

Confused, Sapphire frowned at the handle.  There was no lock on this door, and it opened inwards so nothing could be blocking it outside.  She tugged again, but still it would not move.

A moment later she felt Silver's hand grasp her shoulder and found herself spun around and thrown down to the nearby pallet.

~~~

The Transient leader, still hanging on to the door handle in the corridor, watched the scene play out through its brother's eyes and smiled its pleasure.

~~~

The ancillary chamber was busy as Silver, Jet and Diamond entered.  The three authority figures were inside, surrounding another individual that stood stiffly to attention.  This individual's suit was a dull grey; his hairless skin was ash black.  He was the largest individual in the room by far, and his eyes glowed colourlessly with lethal power.

Silver gasped as he recognised Plutonium.

"Are they crazy?  They've involved the Transuranics!" Jet muttered as she made the same connection.

Diamond was called forward by the foremost authority.  Silver watched as something was discussed between them.  Diamond then motioned to Jet and leaned down to whisper in her ear.  Silver began to grow agitated.  He did not understand what was happening.

When Jet and Diamond joined hands, he realised that they were creating a 'port channel.  Silver assumed it was to the Cumbrian base.  Once they'd readied the way they pulled apart, watching nervously as the authority manoeuvred Plutonium into a position beside them.

Silver realised he was holding his breath.

Plutonium pointed with his arm to a position in between Jet and Diamond, glancing to one side for confirmation that it was accurate.  The foremost nodded once, and the Transuranic's eyes glowed more fiercely still.

As Silver watched in silence, Plutonium's body caught the glow from his eyes.  Sparks crackled all over him, surging to the arm he held aloft.  One of the authority figures materialised beside Silver and offered a telepathic reassurance.

[The plan is proceeding smoothly.  Plutonium has presented us with no difficulties.]

[What's happening?] asked Silver.

[Do you remember when Topaz first defected?  How concerned we were that she might be the first of many?]

[I remember.  The mass exodus didn't exactly happen, though.]

[Even so, at the time we couldn't be sure.  So we planted a sleeper within the Transients' group.  And now we're going to wake him up.]

~~~

It was just as Steel had feared.  When he mentioned Silver, Nitro didn't look the least bit surprised.  This whole set up could only be one massive conspiracy.

No more words were exchanged.  Steel couldn't bring himself to speak, and Nitro seemed to understand that the deception was over.  The two men regarded each other in tense silence.

It was at that moment that Steel recalled how Silver had threatened Sapphire.  He was still unsure how to reconcile this with the display of passion he'd witnessed in the café, but the last hours had seen him move away from logical thought, towards a purer kind of instinct.  There were too many lies here.  He had to stop trying to analyse everything.

His instincts told him to protect Sapphire.  Steel was about to turn and run to do just that, when all hell broke loose.

~~~

After the single blinding flash which accompanied the pulse from Plutonium's lethal fingertips, Silver noted only an exhausted, oppressive silence.  A moment later Diamond's eyes grew glassy as he accessed his power, and then he and Jet stepped back, their shoulders sagging.  Silver's own stiffly held posture relaxed as Jet caught his eye and nodded once, indicating the success of the exercise.

Stray sparks still flickered over the Transuranic's torso, as though the power, once invited, did not like to let go.  Plutonium looked to the foremost authority for further instructions, and when none were forthcoming he turned and made his way to the chamber's arch.  As his dark and menacing form drew near, Silver could not help a wave of nerves.  The occasions where any agent of the network came into contact with a Transuranic elemental were few and far between; this select group of Specialists possessed both a legendary unpredictability as well as formidable power.

Plutonium paused and turned Silver's way, leaving him on the verge of panic, but the Transuranic simply nodded cordially and continued on his way.

"Now what?" Silver heard Diamond demand.

"Now we wait for a signal from Nitro," the foremost replied.  "And if none is forthcoming after..."  There was a pause as the authority figures conversed silently.  "...one hour, then we will 'port a salvage team through."

With that statement, all three of the figures turned and faded from the ancillary chamber, leaving Silver, Diamond and Jet staring at each other in nervous shock.

~~~

Sapphire felt the wave of heat washing through her quite physically.  Silver stood over her vulnerable form as she sprawled on the pallet, and he was also visibly rocked by the blast.  For a moment Sapphire earned a reprieve from Silver's predatory intent, because he stared about in confusion.

Sapphire stretched with her mind, attempting to access the power hitherto forbidden to her.  The barrier was somehow weakened by the arrival of this pulse, and she was finally able to hurl a paralysis at the recovering Silver.  He stiffened beneath its chill.  Sapphire scrambled to her feet, reaching for more power to swing the balance of this confrontation.

Then, as suddenly as the fiery wave had appeared, it vanished without trace.

Sapphire regarded Silver warily.  His eyes met hers as the heat dispersed; they bulged with fury as Silver recognised how she'd bound him.  He inched his head away from her but could manage no more.  Carefully Sapphire edged around him toward the door, but when she'd moved far enough that his face could be seen again, she pulled up in shock.

Silver's eyes glowed a cold Transient blue, and something clicked into place inside Sapphire's mind.

"It's a set up," she rasped, as understanding dawned.  "You joined the Transients.  You're one of them!"

~~~

After the wave of heat had knocked Steel to his knees, he recovered sufficiently to look over at the other person present.  Nitro seemed to have been affected by the blast more seriously than Steel; he clutched and mauled at his temples as though he were in agony.

Steel clambered to his feet and staggered over to the fallen Transient.  "Nitro?" he ventured.  A low groan was the only reply.  "What the hell was that?" he asked in bewilderment, directing his question more to the walls which surrounded him than anywhere else.

When Nitro continued to shake and moan, tucked into a foetal curve on the floor, Steel dropped down and gingerly touched his back.  Nitro lifted his head, and Steel saw that some subtle change had taken place in his companion's appearance.

It wasn't until after he'd helped Nitro to his feet that Steel realised that their statures were more or less matched once more.  Since the blast wave that had come and gone Nitro had lost a good foot in height.

~~~

Topaz came hurtling around the corner to see her leader seated on the floor of the corridor, its hand still clinging to the door handle of Sapphire's cell.  Sweat beaded the Transient's forehead, and its expression was one of perplexity.

"Did you feel it?" she demanded, immediately chastised by the Transient leader's finger which pressed its lips in a warning gesture.  Sapphire was still beyond that door; there was still subterfuge afoot.

"Yes, I felt it," it murmured.  "Some kind of...pulse?"

"But from where?  Why?"

"I don't know, Topaz."  The Transient's eyes rolled with irritation then lit up with power.  "The plan is finished," it said with a sigh after a few moments.  It let go of the door handle.  "Sapphire no longer trusts us."

"Did she ever?" Topaz asked pointedly, her expression returning to a neutral alertness when confronted with her leader's displeasure.  "What happens now, then?"

The leader sighed again.  "We may have missed out on damaging the organisation this time, but we will soon have the means to travel in the past, present and future.  At that point we can collect our two brothers from this planet's prehistory.  We will have the means to stay one step ahead of the Hub until a better opportunity to destroy them presents itself."  Its expression grew hard.  "Sapphire and Steel are no further use to us.  All we can do now is ensure that they are of no use to the Hub, either.  Our brother will deal with Sapphire.  Tell Nitro to get rid of Steel.  Double check that the job is done, then return to the gateway.  I'll see how Mercury is progressing."

~~~

Sapphire could not make her escape after all.  Silver remained paralysed, but the barrier to her power was reforming and it took all of her concentration to keep Silver from his intended assault.  Her eyes burnt blue and then green with effort, and her jaw trembled.

"Foolish, foolish Sapphire," Silver taunted, semi-motionless but still dangerous.  "Where are you going to run?  To whom can you turn?  Your partner is a shell of a man and the Hub wants your blood.  Your time has come.  Give it up, Sapphire, and I'll at least make it quick."

She didn't reply, barely even hearing Silver's words.  Focused on keeping him frozen, just for each moment as it came along, Sapphire was unable to even think of escape.

~~~

Steel was concerned.  Nitro seemed to have recovered his awareness, but some major change had been wrought by the pulse.  A deep furrow split Nitro's brow, and he shook his head, lips moving as he pursued some silent argument with himself.  After a while, the words became audible.

"My name is Nitro and I work for the Hub," he was muttering.  "My name is Nitro..."

Steel could only watch until the muttering stopped and Nitro raised his head to look straight at Steel.

"I've just been ordered to kill you," Nitro remarked, his tone conversational.

Steel took a cautious step back, wondering what new twist this nightmare might now take.

"Oh it's all right," Nitro reassured him.  "My name...my name is Nitro, and I do _not_ work for the Transients."

Steel frowned in bafflement.  Nitro had defected a century ago; this swift change of allegiance was dizzying.

"Our authority set me up as a sleeper," Nitro explained.  At Steel's look of vague comprehension, he insisted, "I'm on your side!"  There was a further moment's pause, before Nitro drew a frightened breath.  "Oh, hell, Sapphire!"

This reminder of Sapphire's situation was like a bucket of icy water.  "She's with Silver," Steel said, turning to make for the door.

"That's not Silver!  It's one of the Transients.  Silver hasn't been anywhere near this place."

Steel hesitated as he reached for the handle.  " _What_?"

"That whole business in the café – Sapphire and Silver, everything you saw – it never happened!"  Nitro's look was apologetic.  "It was planted in your mind, in your memories, just to make you vulnerable.  So you would switch loyalties."  As Steel continued to gape at him, trying to comprehend the level of this manipulation, Nitro pointed at his arm.  "Unwrap the bandage and you'll see."

Feeling a little queasy, Steel grasped one end of the covering and unwound it.  Inch by inch his skin was revealed, but there was no injury.  No blood.  His arm was clean and free of scars, and the sight of it allowed the lingering dizziness from the last days to dissipate into nothing.  For a moment, Steel revelled in this freedom from fatigue, until the enormity of the Transients' deception smacked him fully in the face.

Nitro seemed to gauge Steel's reaction.  His words were hurried.  "Steel, if I've been ordered to destroy you then it's likely that Sapphire is also to be killed."

Steel swallowed hard.  "How do we overcome a Transient?  It's stronger than we are."

"That one isn't necessarily stronger than I am, but there is a way to defeat them.  You have the power yourself.  Why do you think they always wanted you on their side?"

Steel looked at Nitro, intrigued by this suggestion, until his expression jerked to concern as Nitro reached with his hands.

~~~

Mercury turned his head as the Transient leader walked into the working chamber.

"How much longer?" it snapped.

"Did you feel that pulse?" Mercury asked, wondering where Topaz had got to.  She'd left after the heat wave and not returned.

"How much _longer_?"

"An hour, maybe two," Mercury replied, flustered by the Transient's fury.  "But it will need testing before we can–"

"No testing.  No time.  We need to get away from here."

"Well, why don't we use the time corridor?"

"Because we _need_ the gateway, or it's all been for nothing."  The leader took up a post at the door, looking both ways down the passage in a manner which suggested he expected some kind of attack.  "Get on with it.  You've got an hour at the most."  It reached into its inside jacket pocket and retrieved the duplicated travel device.

As if unholstering a gun.

~~~

In her room, Sapphire trembled with the exertion of holding Silver, but despite her best efforts his arm began to move inexorably closer.  She was running out of time.

~~~

They hurried to Sapphire's assistance, one man leading another without touching.

Steel's eyes were unseeing, and his hands stretched forward as though to guard against obstacles.  The faintest of steams shrouded his super-frozen body and his skin was even paler than usual.

Nitro led him around the corner of the side corridor and down to the room at the end.  He knew they had to hurry.  Topaz was looking for him, presumably for confirmation of Steel's death.  Steel was mindless right now, able only to understand the immediate need to rescue Sapphire.  Which was frankly a blessing, as it made the contents of Steel's mind more elusive to Topaz's sensitivity.

Afraid to touch any Transient mind himself for fear of revealing his long-hidden duplicity, Nitro could not ascertain Sapphire's current status by means of the fake-Silver.  He approached the door and cast a look over his shoulder to check that Steel was prepared.

~~~

Steel's cell was empty of both the agent himself and Nitro.  Topaz could sense both individuals within the institution, but the flow of communication from her colleague had dried up for the first time that she could remember since their enrolment into Transient ranks.

Something had happened.  Something to do with the wave of heat.

She turned, ready to return to her leader and report.  Before she'd taken more than a few steps, however, she stopped.  Unconsciously indulging her human form, she captured her lower lip between her teeth in a gesture of indecision.  She remembered the leader's fury.  She recalled the decisions made over her head.  The plan, intended to render their group free from enemies and powerful beyond imagining: the plan which had apparently fallen through thanks to her own lack of input.

The indecision left her.  Topaz changed direction, heading back to Sapphire's room and the trace of Nitro which she could still sense.

~~~

Sapphire watched, terrified, as Silver's arm closed in on her throat.  Though it was all happening with gut-clenching protraction, it seemed as though the final strike to end her life had become a bleak inevitability.  She couldn't move, couldn't relax her concentration for one second lest the progress quicken.  The entire world consisted of Silver's cold, blue eyes and cruel, advancing hand.

She didn't notice the door begin to inch open.

When Steel walked into her peripheral vision, reaching for Silver's face, Sapphire was astonished.  Her attention lapsed and the paralysis she struggled to maintain failed, letting Silver break free.  Gasping with dread, she moved instinctively backwards and jumped again as strong hands grasped her shoulders.  Sapphire spun around, frightened by the prospect of some further attack, but saw only Nitro: a shorter, kinder Nitro.  He nodded in Steel's direction and she looked on with shock as her partner backed Silver into a corner.  The frost from his body chilled the room.

"This is too dangerous," she whispered.  "How could you let him do this?  He'll never warm through again in this place."

Steel's hands made contact and Silver's face flashed, changing for a fleeting instant to that of a stranger.  Silver emitted a sound – a high-pitched whine at the top end of the audible frequency range – before he collapsed to the floor like a falling tree.  His frozen body impacted on the rough stone surface and shattered into shards, as if he'd been made of glass.

There was silence.  Steel sank to his knees, strength spent.

"Silver?" Sapphire said, watching as the shards glowed Transient-blue and disappeared.

"That wasn't Silver," Nitro murmured.  "That was a Transient pretending to be Silver."

"And you?" she asked, rounding on Nitro, postponing the moment when she would have to confront Steel again.  "What are you pretending to be?"

"I'm on your side.  I, er...I just didn't know it until that pulse thawed the part of my mind which contained certain memories.  I froze it myself, a century ago.  Back when I undertook this assignment."

Sapphire looked at him in shock, the scale of his sacrifice becoming clear.  "A hundred years with _them_?"

"Time later to face all that," Nitro replied.  "We still have three to deal with."

"Three?  Topaz, and the leader, and...?"

"Mercury defected.  He is the third."

Mercury.  Another piece of the puzzle fell into place; _that_ was how the Transients had escaped their prison in the past.  Sapphire turned to Steel, who'd begun to shiver as he hunched up on the debris-covered floor.  "He tried to kill me," she whispered, images warring for attention in her mind.

"Of course he didn't," Nitro said.  "How could he do such a thing?  We're talking about _Steel_."

"But I remember."

"False memories.  Planted memories."  Nitro sighed.  "Believe me, your throat is unscarred."  Sapphire lifted a hand to trace the painful area of her neck.  "Look, I'll explain later.  Right now I need to send a signal to the Hub to tell them the pulse worked, and I can do this better through you.  Will you help me, Sapphire?"

Swallowing too many emotions, Sapphire nodded and reached for Nitro's temples.

~~~

Mercury looked up from his feverish work as the leader howled.

"What?" he demanded, but he needed no answer as he felt the consciousness of the other true Transient falling to pieces until it touched him no more.

~~~

Topaz burst into the room to see Nitro and Sapphire in some kind of communication, and Steel crouching on the floor obviously in distress.  His arm was unbandaged: proof of another failure.  There was no sign of the Transient who had played the role of Silver.  In fact she could no longer sense the being at all.

Topaz decided she'd had enough of Transience.  She wanted to be on the winning side; it was where she belonged.  In the blink of an eye her allegiance yo-yoed back to its original state.

"Steel," she said, ignoring the other two.  "Steel, you have to be careful.  It's all a lie, designed to manipulate you."  Topaz stepped up to the agent, noting his shivers.  "Are you all right?" she asked.  Steel was no use to her unless he was whole and fit.

She reached to help him up, but Sapphire was there, denying her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Don't touch him!" Sapphire ordered.

Topaz looked at her.  Sapphire's beauty caught in her throat.  She sneered and used her power to throw the agent back, then she reached to take Steel's unresisting hands.

For a brief instant the cold overwhelmed her, then she fell backwards to the cell floor.

~~~

Hub-side, Silver – the real Silver – and his colleagues had gone to the central chamber, awaiting any news from the Transient base.  They'd been joined by various colleagues who'd drifted in as they sensed developments, until a small group filled the room with tangible anticipation.

Within twenty minutes of Plutonium's pulse, though it seemed like an ice age longer, the authorities arrived.

"Nitro has responded," the foremost authority announced.  "His signal was assisted by Sapphire."

A rustling spread around the chamber as this proof of Sapphire's safety sank in.  Amidst the relief, however, Silver felt Jet's painful needles of sorrow for Steel.

The authority continued as the rustling died away.  "The signal was broken off, so we can assume that events at the Transients' base are not yet concluded.  It has been agreed to send through a team to assist, but we will accept only volunteers.  Nitro has advised us that we should send for Lead."

Silver frowned.  He could think of only one reason why Lead's presence was required: insulation.  Which suggested that there was a chance that Steel remained alive.  He shared a look with Jet.  Her dark eyes reflected his own doubt.

"Volunteers may now step forward," the figure said.

Jet's shoulder nudged his own and the contact remained unbroken as they pushed forward together.  On Jet's other side, Silver did not need to turn his head to recognise the presence of Diamond.

~~~


	9. Stop the Cavalry

"Is she dead?"

Sapphire turned to Nitro as he asked the question, hearing the catch in his voice.  Topaz was an enemy, a Transient, and the root cause of Nitro's assignment with all its associated pain and trauma.

Did he _care_ for this turncoat?

"No," she replied, returning her gaze to the unconscious body of Topaz and allowing the flat of her palm to hover a few millimetres above its surface.  "Destroying the first Transient drained most of the cold away from Steel.  Topaz will be unconscious for a few hours, maybe longer if she isn't removed to somewhere warm.  But the touch wasn't enough to kill her."

"What about the other one?" Nitro asked.  "I mean, did Steel destroy it for good?  I hoped it would do the trick, but these beings, these Transients, they have such power.  Could it have survived?"

Sapphire clambered to her feet and stepped over to her pallet, where Steel now lay curled up, shivering violently underneath her woollen blanket.  He was still too cold for her to touch: a fact which caused her a combination of pain and relief.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Sapphire said.  "We understand little about the physiology of true Transient beings.  If it isn't gone for good, though, I think it'll be indisposed for a while."  She moved over to Nitro and raised her hands to his shoulders.  "May I have this, please?"  She tugged at the collar of his jacket and enjoyed the guarded confusion in his expression, before he jerked with understanding and slipped the jacket off.  Smiling her thanks, she returned to Steel's prone form and draped the clothing over him as best she could.  She wondered how the jacket had managed to shrink along with Nitro's more familiar stature.

"Two more to deal with," she said.  "And I'm afraid we can't rely on any more help from Steel.  So.  Shall we go and find them?"

~~~

In the end they were four: the same four who had faced Mercury beside the cells.  Silver and Jet, Diamond and Lead.  Others had offered their help, but to overrun the Transient base with agents would simply move their enemy on elsewhere.

The vaguest of plans had been sketched out.  The authority placed a great deal of importance on the retrieval of Nitro.  Understanding the sacrifice made by his colleague, Silver had to agree.  Sapphire and – if he remained intact – Steel were also to be found and brought back.  Intelligence on the remaining Transient Beings within the old institution was needed.  No direct confrontation was to be attempted.

Diamond and Jet had linked to form the 'port channel, as Silver stood to one side with Lead.  He was reassured by the massive frame of his fellow Specialist, and occupied himself with restlessly straightening his already immaculate tie and waistcoat.

Then Jet stood away from Diamond and indicated that their 'port was ready.

~~~

Sapphire had hated to walk away and leave Steel on the pallet to rest.  The link between them was starting to reform, however, perhaps because Transient attention was focused elsewhere.  While Steel remained so cold there was nothing genuinely coherent from his mind, but even the occasional whisper of his voice saying her name was enough to give her strength.

Her throat was hurting less and less.

Nitro paused at a corner.  As he edged around the wall to scout the territory ahead, his voice spoke in her mind.

[Around the next passage is the room where Mercury's been holed up.  He's been working flat out on a device, some kind of a gateway, which – if successful – will allow the Transients to travel anywhere, both in time and space.  They just have to walk through it and Mercury's interdimensional skill becomes their own.  My guess is that the leader returned there.  It's the only prize it has left.]

[Don't you know for sure?]

[If I link to find out, the link works both ways.  There'd be no way of hiding my loyalty.  I don't need to tell you how adept they are at reading and controlling minds.]

[But the lead Transient – it still believes you're one of them at the moment?]

[As far as I know.]

[Well, it's the only advantage we have, so let's hope so.]

Nitro took another peek around the corner.  He inhaled sharply and swung back.  Sapphire moved further away as Nitro retreated from his lookout post.  When they'd described some distance from the corner he leaned on the wall and eyed her uncertainly.

[The leader's there,] he confirmed.  [It's standing in the entrance to the chamber.  Mercury must be inside too.  The leader's armed.  Remember the travel sets?]  Without waiting for Sapphire's acknowledgement, he continued.  [There's still one active.]  When Sapphire did not respond, Nitro pressed her.  [Well, do you have any ideas?  Steel is not only out of the equation for the moment, he'll be out of it for good if we don't get him Hub-side pretty soon.]

[You took Steel's temperature down.  It was one of your specialities.  Can't your hands freeze the Transients like Steel can?  Could that be our weapon?]

[No,] Nitro replied.  [You know how long I need to be in contact with Steel in order to freeze him.  Touching a Transient for the few seconds I might get away with before they bat me across the room?  I mean, it'd be painfully irritating to them, maybe, but nothing more.]

Sapphire thought hard.  [Do you still have Transient power?]

Nitro pursed his lips.  [I have access to it, yes.  I've been steering clear of it since I...since I remembered.]

[That's understandable,] Sapphire sent.  [Unfortunately we may need it.  All right then.]  She'd been trying to apply Steel's usual strategising to this situation.  [I'd say the first thing we have to do is separate them.  Apart, they're weaker.]

[You know, I'm surprised the leader didn't come running when Steel destroyed the other Transient,] Nitro thought.  [Technically speaking, that's made it the only true Transient Being left.]

[It knows about the other's death?]  Sapphire frowned.  [Good.  That means it isn't sure about my status.]  There was a mental quiet for a few seconds as she considered the options.  [How does this sound?] she asked.  [Approach the leader.  Tell it you've killed Steel, as per your instructions.  Ask for confirmation that the one who tried to kill me is dead.  The Transient will have to send you out after me – that will be his priority.  Ask it to give you the device, the travel set, so you don't have to face me unarmed.  Tell it you're worried about the way you can't sense Topaz.]

[The leader will never trust me with that device.]

[It might,] Sapphire sent.  [It needs all the friends it can get right now.  But if it won't, then I'd suggest you play the coward.  Tell it you'll stay with Mercury on guard, and the Transient itself can take the device and hunt me down.]

[And if it doesn't agree to that either?]

[Then come back here.  We'll be back where we started.]

Nitro turned towards her, his forehead creased with anxiety.  [It will try to read me.  It's the nature of this being – suspicion and distrust.]

[Can't you protect your thoughts with the Transient power?]

[To a degree.  Not without looking suspicious, though.  And it is stronger than I.  It always made sure it was stronger than its recruits.]

[All right, so if that happens then I'll create a distraction.  I'll make a time-loop, just for a few seconds, enough to disorient it.  Once it's over, I'd suggest you be ready to run.]

Nitro nodded his understanding and went back to the corner.  His shoulders moved with a nervously taken breath.  Sapphire realised something and hurried up behind him.  Just before he set off, Sapphire reached out and grasped his shoulder.  Surprised, Nitro spun back around and questioned her with a frown.  Sapphire smiled.  Drawing herself up to her full height, she looked down on the slightly less tall Nitro.  He watched her, bewildered for a moment until her reminder became clear.

Nitro's eyes glowed a cold blue, then the Specialist began to grow.

~~~

Steel clung to consciousness despite the seductive draw of the blackness.  He'd taken himself down without protection before, after all.  It might be that up until now Lead had always appeared to leech the frost from his body, and previously, when recovering, he'd usually been in a warm place.  But all that was by the by.  Although he was too weak to stand and follow Sapphire – too weak as yet to even communicate properly with her – Steel refused to let the beckoning frost-coma overtake him.

How could he give up now?  That aching void inside where his connection to Sapphire had been torn away was changing, reforming.  For the first time in days he knew he still had something worth surviving for.

~~~

Silver materialised outside an imposing stone building.  Dawn had broken and the sky was greyish-white with cloud.  A single tarmac road, pitted with potholes, led away from the building and into the surrounding fells.  No traffic was seen, nor was any likely.  There was only one reason to take that road: a reason which had shut down decades ago in squalor and neglect.

As his colleagues coalesced beside him, Silver tried to shrug off his sense of trepidation.  He told himself it was merely a product of the desolate countryside.  He drew a deep breath and offered Jet his arm.

"Shall we?" he asked, and the whole party moved to the entrance.

~~~

Mercury's fingers were beginning to tremble with exertion.  As fast as his work in encoding the modules of his gateway progressed, the Transient leader wanted it done faster still.  Mercury needed to rest, in truth, and was angered by this weakness.  He had not imagined he would ever again feel weakened or vulnerable after gaining Transient power.

The appearance of Nitro at the doorway gave him an excuse to pause in his labours.  Nitro's arrival lifted Mercury.  Things had not been going well, and the loss of one more Transient had been worse than damaging.  The leader seemed to share this relief, reaching out to slap Nitro's shoulder in a gesture of familiarity and welcome which surprised Mercury as much as it apparently surprised Nitro himself.  Mercury stepped out from behind the gateway, wanting to hear the exchange.

"Steel?" the leader prompted.

"History," Nitro replied with satisfaction.  "I'm glad the order to destroy him came through.  He'd been out snooping, and he'd seen what he thought was Silver.  Things were over with him anyway."

The leader nodded its understanding.  Then its eyes narrowed.  "What happened to your jacket, Nitro?"

Nitro looked down at his torso, as if taken aback by his own shirtsleeves, then he rolled his eyes.  "Took it off," he said casually.  "After Steel, it was...messy."

Mercury smirked.  So did the leader.

"I lost contact with our brother," Nitro added.  "Is everything all right?"

Mercury felt rather than saw another surge of grief from the leader.  "Our brother is gone.  At least for now," the leader said.

"Well, what about Sapphire?"

"I don't know!"  The Transient narrowed its eyes.  " Can you sense her?  You shared first level telepathy with her before your...ascension."

Nitro was shaking his head.  "I was never a sensitive.  I can only hear her if she wants to be heard.  Where is Topaz?  I lost her too, a few minutes ago.  Topaz should be able to find Sapphire in an instant."

Fury roiled in the leader's eyes.  Mercury knew that this rage came from an absence of control.  Events had spiralled; the plan had been derailed.  "I don't know that either!" the leader growled.  "Go, Nitro, go and find Topaz, and find Sapphire.  She can't have gone far.  Find her and kill her."

Nitro nodded curtly and turned to leave, but then he paused and turned again to face his leader.  "Um – if Sapphire destroyed our brother, and possibly Topaz too..."

"How could she have?" the Transient leader said in derision.  "She is only one, and she is still weak.  Even at full strength she couldn't inflict more than a scratch on any one of us.  The only potential danger came from her partner, and he is gone."

"Even so."

Mercury understood Nitro's hesitation.  It wasn't as if anything else the leader had predicted had come to pass.

"I know," Nitro offered.  "Give me the device.  I can most assuredly deal with her then."

The leader looked down at its hand, as if it was surprised to see the slim box still grasped within.  Mercury watched as it seemed to agree, offering the device.

But then the leader snatched it back.  "Betrayal?" it suggested warily.

Mercury sighed.  The leader's response was predictable, perhaps, but this was no time for paranoia.

"Betrayal?" Nitro parroted, spluttering indignation.  Mercury watched a tense moment pass between the two of them, but Nitro shook his head with resignation just as it seemed that the impasse may develop into confrontation.  "Very well, if you don't want to part with the damn thing, _you_ go and deal with Sapphire.  I'll stay here and guard the gateway."  Nitro made to step further into the room.

But the leader landed a hand on Nitro's shoulder, stopping him where he stood.  "No," it murmured.  "I will not be the first to pass through the gateway, but I will not be the last either.  _I_ wait here with Mercury.  I keep the device.  Find Topaz.  Find Sapphire.  Bring her here.  I will be ready."

~~~

Sapphire had not dared to watch the exchange between Nitro and the Transient leader, neither visually nor telepathically, but her hearing was excellent.  She'd prepared to access the power to loop time when her ears detected the word 'betrayal', but when Nitro was free to join her again she relaxed.

[The Transient wouldn't trust me with the device, and it won't leave the gateway,] Nitro reported.  [Mercury was working away until I showed up.  I have no idea how close to completion the thing is.]  As his words sounded in Sapphire's mind, Nitro's lips pinched together with worry.  [Our priority has to be disabling that machine.  Without it, they still rely on the device.  And without the device they can be imprisoned in the past again.]

Sapphire nodded at this summary.  Her mind worked through the possibilities.  Pretend to be Nitro's captive?  Then she would be destroyed by the device.  Return to the Hub?  There may not be the time to form another plan and return to prevent the Transients coming into their newly stolen power.  And all else besides, she couldn't leave Steel here.

To get at the gateway, they had to get through the leader.  Even 'porting into the room from an adjacent one would be useless; they may have a moment's advantage, but they remained unarmed against the device, and two Transients were more than a match for her, even with Nitro's support.

Sapphire shook her head, sharing all this with Nitro in an instant before turning to retreat quietly down the corridor.  [I want to check on Steel.  Let me know if you think of anything.]

~~~

Diamond used his fingers to trace the edges of the main doorway, catching Jet's dark eyes as he did so.  Silver frowned, glancing at Lead who seemed calm and unruffled though distinctly less jovial than normal.

"Well?" he whispered, unsure why he'd lowered his voice.

"The taint which protected this place is weaker.  Almost non-existent," Diamond replied, speaking in a low murmur.  "We'll try to contact Sapphire."

Silver watched his two colleagues anxiously, waiting for the response.  As Jet's mouth broke into a smile, he heaved a sigh of relief.  Lead's massive hand came down on his shoulder in celebration; Silver jarred with the effect.

Diamond turned to the rest of them.  "Sapphire is alive and unhurt.  She is with Nitro.  Steel is alive too."  Silver saw tears brimming in Jet's eyes and sniffed his own back; it would certainly not do to betray his own furious sense of relief.  "He's sub-zero at the moment, though.  Sapphire's making her way to meet us and will lead Lead to Steel.  He's already managed to destroy one of the Transients, and he's incapacitated another.  Topaz."

Cold.  It seemed so obvious, now.  Steel's absolute cold which could penetrate time traps and destroy fragments would naturally have an effect on beings so steeped in the essence of time.  Silver turned to Lead and matched his wide smile.  Things were not so bleak after all.

"Unfortunately there are still two Transients remaining," Diamond went on.  "They're finishing a device which will change them, somehow – add to their abilities so that the past can never again be a prison.  Our target has to be this device.  Nitro will show us the way.  Jet – stay with Lead and Sapphire.  Silver and I will go with Nitro and see about this machine."

Silver was surprised when Jet shook her head.  "It's good of you to offer, but I'm here to stop the Transients, not to see Steel," she said.  "I can't help him like Lead can.  I'm more useful with you and Silver."

Diamond nodded once.  Silver noted with a mixture of amusement and apprehension that their orders from the authority – to avoid confrontation – had been universally disregarded.  He turned to watch the door with growing nerves.  He could hardly wait to see Sapphire again, but the memory of Mercury's assault and the faulty ball bearing device he had given her left him cautious about the kind of welcome he could expect.

~~~

Mercury had scurried back to work on Nitro's departure, trying to exude an aura of application and effort.  The leader paced to and fro for a short while, shaking its head.  Mercury was nervous.  The loss of their colleague had left the Transient far from composed, and Mercury found himself wishing that it was Nitro sharing his working chamber.

When the leader stopped short and drew on Transient power, Mercury's nimble fingers slowed once again.  He could sense the way his leader reached for something, but could not identify the target.  When the light faded in the Transient's eyes, Mercury was startled to see that they stared straight at him.

"I'm worried about Nitro," the leader said hesitantly.

"Oh.  Well, he seemed fine to me," Mercury replied.

"Not his well-being.  His loyalty."  The leader paused and Mercury shifted, at a loss for words.  "I'm going after him.  With the device.  Just to be sure."

"What about me?" Mercury asked, in a voice which ventured too far into shrill territory for his own liking.

"You're one of time's Transients," the leader stated.  "You have your own innate powers of transportation, and you have the strength of your new allegiance."  It walked to the door and turned back.  "Besides, your mind is still open to me.  So don't worry yourself – if anything happens, I'll be straight back here."

With that, the leader left, and Mercury turned from the door to examine the gateway.  In truth, however, he was thoroughly sick of the sight of his masterwork.

~~~

There was the sound of old, rusted metal scraping, then the heavy doors opened a crack.  Blue eyes peered from the gloom inside and reflected the morning light, and the sight took Silver's breath away.  Sapphire looked tired, her appearance betraying the exhaustion of her captivity.  Her hair and dress were dishevelled; it was strange to see her looking anything other than flawless.  He caught her eye and tried a smile, hoping fervently that she forgave him for the mistake in the café.  Silver's heart tripped as she smiled back, though he was dismayed by the fleeting hesitation in her response.

Without pause for small-talk, Sapphire swung the door open wide and offered a summary.  "Steel needs Lead right away.  Nitro will show the rest of you to the gateway Mercury is constructing.  The leader and Mercury remain at large – they were by the machine, the last we saw them.  We don't think Nitro's true loyalty has been discovered yet, though we need to be careful.  Scout things out near the gateway, contact me when you form any conclusions and in the meantime we'll get Steel on his feet again."

"If cold is our most effective weapon against the Transients, can we take Steel down again?" asked Diamond, following Sapphire through into the building.

"No!" came two voices in unison.  Sapphire and Jet paused to look at each other, then Jet offered a watery smile and allowed Sapphire to reach and touch her hand.  Sapphire shook her head and turned to Diamond.  "He needs time to recover.  To refuse him that time and re-freeze him – it might mean he never warms through again."

They crossed a lobby and disappeared through double doors opposite the entrance.  As the corridor reached a T-junction, Sapphire gestured to the right with her hand.

"Nitro, keep in touch."  Nitro nodded and turned away, motioning Diamond, Jet and Silver with him.  Silver turned to look one more time upon Sapphire – this reunion had been all too brief – but she and Lead were already hurrying in the opposite direction.  His lips tightened in concern for a moment, before he had to quicken his steps to catch up with the others.

They had a gateway to destroy.

~~~

Mercury's work was nearly finished.  He was setting the final configuration parameters when his thoughts were interrupted.  An image came into his mind, showing a party of several agents proceeding through the corridors of the complex, all tagging along behind Nitro.

Panic raised bile in his throat as he recognised his enemies.  All his enemies.  All here.  The message was from his leader and was clear: Nitro was leading these newcomers to the gateway.  Nitro had turned traitor.

Moments later Mercury sensed reassurance from the Transient, however.  This betrayal no longer mattered because the leader was on their trail and was not without weapons.

~~~


	10. Playing For Time

Sapphire hurried through the corridors of the complex with little heed to caution.  Getting insulation to Steel was of more immediate concern than discovery.  Lead followed her, his long strides matching almost two of her own.

Lead had spoken only once, softly and with the tenderness she had come to expect from this colossal Specialist.  "Sapphire, are you all right?" he'd asked as they walked.

Sapphire wished that he hadn't.  She wasn't yet ready to answer that question, especially not to herself.  Not truthfully, anyway.  She'd slowed her steps, raised a hand to her throat without volition and shaken her head.  Lead hadn't pursued the question, but she knew he'd perceived her distress.

Steel was exactly where she'd left him.  His shivering was less violent now, as though his body were seizing up and denying him even that much movement.  Lead stalked past her to Steel's vulnerable form, ignoring the motionless Topaz on the other side of the room.  He crouched down, lifted Nitro's jacket and the blanket away and examined Steel's frost-rimed skin.

When the image of Lead became blurred, Sapphire realised she was crying.  Impatiently she blinked the tears away, using the back of her hand when willpower alone could not vanquish them.  The last few days had all been too much, but she couldn't give in now.

By the time she could see clearly again, Lead had laid his hands on Steel's shoulders and growled to himself as the cold spiked through his own body.  A stuttered complaint left Steel's lips: the first coherent words Sapphire had heard him speak since the meeting behind the barrier.

"Leave...me alone, Lead.  I'm...perfectly all...right!"

Sapphire didn't know whether to laugh at this predictable ingratitude or give in to the tears still burning the back of her throat.  In the end, as Lead turned his head to look at her and smile his own relief, she managed a mixture of both.

~~~

_'This must be the most miserable place I've ever seen...'_

Silver's thoughts wandered as he walked through the cold, dingy, scuffed-up passages of the former hospital.  Intermittent light bulbs provided illumination, along with the dirt-tinged daylight which came through an occasional window.  The desolation of the building touched him somehow.  Beside him Jet remained calm and focused.  She was strong again now, thanks to the news of Steel's resurrection.

Nitro and Diamond halted up ahead as they reached an intersection.  Silver willed his racing heart to be still.  He swallowed his fear and glanced at his companion.  Jet was frowning, looking about.  Her disquiet did nothing to reassure him.

[Diamond.]  Jet's words echoed in Silver's head, and presumably Nitro's, though she addressed her fellow empath.  [Do you sense Transient taint?]

[There's a background sensation...]  Diamond cocked his head to one side and concentrated.  Silver held his breath, afraid to interrupt with the smallest sound.  [No, you're right.  There _is_ something.]  Diamond glanced at the team and made a decision.  [We're too much a target, all together.  Nitro and I will go on to the machine.  Jet, you and Silver take a detour, see what there is to see.  We can stay in touch.  If anything happens to one pair, at least we won't all be taken together.]

Nitro led the way and Diamond followed.  Silver turned to Jet.

[Alone at last,] he ventured half-heartedly.

~~~

As the cold left him, so did his exhaustion.  Every time he returned to normal following a freeze, it was like a rebirth, a renewal.  Steel stepped away from Lead's healing hands and stretched, smiling as he realised that his partner's link was in place once again.  He sensed her essence, her support, her vibrancy in close proximity.

He had been less than himself without it.

Absently he rubbed his unclothed arm, looking down to see Nitro's jacket.  He picked it up and shrugged it on, more out of decorum than the warmth it gave.  Topaz's body lay to one side, and he remembered the touch which had chilled her.  Finally he turned to Lead, ready to catch up on the events which had taken place during his incapacitation.  Lead was beaming at him, a familiar wide smile which became a throaty, irresistible chuckle, then he moved aside.

Behind him, nearer than Steel had anticipated, stood Sapphire.

~~~

When Nitro reached the same corner from which he and Sapphire had observed the gateway chamber earlier, he held up a warning hand.  He smoothed himself against the wall and Diamond joined him, shoulder to shoulder.

Being alone with an agent of the Hub felt strange after Nitro's century of Transience.  It had been different with both Steel and Sapphire; their shared experience had allowed for a kind of bond after the heat had jogged his memories.  The two agents had accepted him, perhaps thanks to the way he'd shared his mind with Sapphire when signalling the Hub.

But Diamond was different, arriving straight from the Hub as he had.  With Diamond, Nitro was reminded that he'd been a traitor-figure to the organisation for a very long time.  A sense of awkwardness and insecurity threatened to well up within him, but while they were this close to a Transient Being he could not allow the defences around his mind to diminish.

Diamond was nothing but professional though, giving no indication of mistrust.  Calming his errant thoughts, Nitro spoke mentally to describe the layout of the chamber.  Diamond listened, sneaking a single brief glance around the edge of the wall before pressing back into hiding.

[There is nobody at the doorway now,] he told Nitro.

Nobody there.  And yet the leader had been so adamant that he had to stay by the gateway.

[Check again,] Nitro sent shakily.  Perhaps the leader was deeper within the room, assisting Mercury–

"Looking for someone?" came a voice from behind them.

~~~

Steel's face paled when his eyes met Sapphire's.  He blinked and stepped back.  She almost cried out with frustration.  The nightmare from the café was becoming more distant, but it had not yet faded completely.  For now she had tried to set all that aside.  She knew how harrowing her experience had been; what kind of nightmare had the Transients contrived for Steel?

Both of them had been damaged, and they might not yet survive to measure the extent of their injuries.

The frustration was dismissed as soon as it had arrived when her partner's lips curled fractionally.  Tentative, even for him, but it was nonetheless a smile.  She managed the same gesture in return.

Sometime soon, Sapphire realised, she was going to feel the need to break down.

They stepped closer together, the old rhythm asserting itself.  Perhaps the days of isolation and loneliness had been as much of a sham as the murderous memories.  Discarding the thought as inconsequential, at least for the time being, Sapphire prepared to allow herself a single indulgent touch: just one.

Something shouted in her mind.

Her hand stalled before she made contact.  Unable to spare any further moment for this reconciliation, Sapphire answered her partner's confused expression.

"Diamond and Nitro are in trouble," she said.

Then she was running.

~~~

_'In trouble.'_

Silver chewed at his lip as Jet reached for further details, but none seemed to arrive.  Her brow creased with tension as she strained to locate and communicate with her colleague, but all to no avail.  Finally, impatient to discover the danger himself, Silver grasped Jet's arm and pulled her back the way they'd wandered, retracing their steps.  He could remember the route exactly, and it was better than running blind.

~~~

Where the idea had come from, he couldn't say, but Nitro reacted without pause for thought.  Positioning himself behind Diamond, he grasped the agent by a shoulder and opened himself fully to the Transient power, his height increasing once more and his eyes frosting with blue.

"There are more of them," he reported to the leader, who'd crept up on their unguarded rear, that deadly box wielded in ready hands.  "Sapphire must have managed to contact them.  Silver is here, and Lead, and Jet.  I can't believe I managed to convince them I was on their side!"  He barked a laugh, hoping it sounded more convincing than it felt.

That would do for now, Nitro considered.  Say any more, and his desperation would be transparent.

The leader's lips snarled upwards.  "A good play, Nitro."

Nitro attempted to match the evil grin.  "I thought so," he said airily.  "Now how do we round up the others?"

"All in good time," came the reply.  Nitro's eyes dropped to the leader's fingers as they tightened around the lid of the box.  "What has happened to Sapphire?"

"She went to another part of the building."  Nitro frowned.  "They split up to present a more difficult target."  Diamond was so still that it was tempting to check he still breathed.  "She wasn't happy about Steel," he added, remembering that Steel was supposed to be dead.

The leader chuckled.  "'Not happy'?  Really, Nitro, you do have a remarkable facility for understatement.  I've been inside her mind, remember?"  Diamond finally moved, giving a shudder at the comment.  "You could do me rather a favour, actually," the leader added.

"What's that?" Nitro asked, filled with terror he tried to hide.

"You could open your mind to me.  Just for a moment.  You see, I'm feeling lonely – what with our group getting a little on the sparse side.  Let me see your mind, touch it for a while.  I'd feel ever so much better."

Stalemate.  He should have known that the leader wouldn't buy his story.  Without any conscious effort, Nitro found himself shrinking back to his true form, letting go of the Transient power, aware that it would be the last time he ever touched it.  His hand slid off Diamond's shoulder and his eyes lost their unearthly glow.

"Yes," said the Transient.  "I thought so."

It was all over.  In a moment, Nitro's mental defences would be peeled away like onion skins.  And there was nothing he could do about it.

~~~

Sapphire stopped at a junction and her two colleagues almost ran into the back of her.

"Which way?" Steel asked.  Sapphire had brought him up to date as they'd moved, the exchange of information fluid and silent.  Just like the old days.

The old days?

Sapphire supposed that _all_ days occurring before that fateful assignment at the service station could now be considered 'old'.  It was a new way of measuring time.  Pre-Transients, and post-Transients.  Before she'd been subjected to her greatest fear, and afterwards.

She cast about, listening for a clue, but sensed nothing.  Trying an alternative tack, she reached for Jet.  A torrent of news hit her, tinged with Jet's chagrin at not having offered it sooner:

[I'm with Silver.  We split into pairs.  Good job we did.  Do you know where?]

The rush of information was short and sharp.  Sapphire sent back that she didn't know.  All they could do was join forces.  With a vague awareness of Jet's direction, she indicated to Lead and Steel to follow her.

~~~

Nitro's eyes had fallen shut in resignation.  For a moment nothing happened, although the anticipation was almost as painful as the mental violation would be in itself.

When his mind remained unbreached, he opened his eyes again to see only a small trace of Transient blue emanating from the leader, and fury locking that being's jaw.  Nitro cast a glance to the side and saw that Diamond had drawn on his own power – the glassy, reflective power – effectively isolating the Transient Being.

Diamond shook with exertion, effort contorting his face.  Even so, thought Nitro, to make a successful barrier against the source of Transient power?  How could Diamond even do that?

More importantly, what the hell should he do now?  If he distracted Diamond to try to get them away then the block Diamond had created would be dispelled.  If he left on his own, Diamond remained in trouble; Nitro couldn't make himself do that.

He needed help.

Fortunately he could hear rapid footsteps.

~~~

As soon as Silver saw the Transient Being confronting their two colleagues, his hurried steps faltered.  Jet drew to a more graceful stop alongside him and grasped his arm.  Silver felt certain that the being must have heard their approach, but for some reason it seemed distracted.  The Transient stared at Diamond and Nitro in rage, its hands clasping the travel set though it made no move to attack.  When Silver peered more closely he saw that Diamond trembled with the strain of keeping Transient power at bay.

[How the hell is he doing that?] came Jet's startled thought.  [Damn it, we lost Mercury because he _couldn't_ do that.]

[Perhaps he's learned since then,] Silver suggested, one eye on the box-shaped weapon.  [You taught him how to recognise the taint.  Maybe he taught himself how to block it.]

[We have to disarm the leader,] Jet decided, discarding these theories for the moment.

Communication between them fell quiet as the small trace of blue in the Transient's eyes faded, and with a roar the being brought up a hand and smashed Diamond across the neck.  It seemed it had resorted to physical attack.  Diamond flew several feet along the corridor and then crashed to the stone floor.  Silver winced.  Nitro stumbled away to crouch beside Diamond, laying an insistent hand on the empath's shoulder to try to coax him back to consciousness.

When Silver's attention returned to the Transient, he was shocked to see that the being had turned its furious gaze his way.  The device in the Transient's hands was raised, the lid lifted just slightly, the angle of the weapon taking in the prone Diamond and Nitro.

"Come over here, Silver.  Jet."  The Transient's silkiest tone sounded incongruous after the savage shout, but was no less dangerous for that.

Unable to retreat thanks to the threat being levelled at their two colleagues, Silver led Jet closer.

~~~

Sapphire pulled up halfway down a passage.  Steel's momentum made him pass her before he stopped and turned.

"Well?" he prompted when she didn't seem ready to get going again.  "Where now?  Are they still in danger?"

"Yes.  All of them.  Jet has reached Diamond, but I can't sense her any more.  They must all be together, wherever they are."

"Or whenever," Steel suggested darkly, thinking of the Triassic period.  "But we can't stop now.  Come on!"

~~~

Diamond was alive, but his neck was broken.  Silver noted the unnatural angle of his colleague's head with a sense that verged on detachment.  Maybe he was too shocked to do anything else.  One didn't look at a broken neck every day.

Nitro had noted the extent of Diamond's injury and stopped shaking at him.  He still crouched beside Diamond, looking horrified at the turn these events had taken.  Jet gasped at her fellow empath, before the presence of the Transient with that terrifying box offered a distraction from even Diamond's problems.  She clutched to Silver's arm and he was glad of it, unable to resist the ancient, genetic need within him for warmth and company.

The Transient smiled viciously, mouth like a blade.  It clearly enjoyed the moment of hopelessness and surrender.  It took all of them in, and it began to ease up the lid of the device.

Silver squared his shoulders and lifted his chin.  He might be about to die, but he at least died with friends.  Tempting though it was to make his final sight before death Jet's smooth dark skin and sensually cropped hair, Silver forced himself to turn to the Transient Being.  Jet was not so reconciled and dropped her head to his shoulder, tremulous with the tension of holding herself ready for annihilation.

Time seemed to slow, though the mind could play tricks at moments such as these.  It seemed that an age passed before the lid of the box moved any distance.  Even the blinking of their captor's eyes seemed sluggish...

...as did the furrowing of its brow...

...and the Transient Being seemed to notice the change in the atmosphere itself.

Damn it, this was no mind trick.  Time _had_ slowed.

And suddenly the sensation of wading through glue was replaced by a strange liberation as the drag on each passing second lifted.  As if that were not enough to distract, from out of nowhere came a huge cannonball, thundering along the passage, straight into the leader.  The Transient was knocked sideways and the box left its grasp, falling to the floor and skidding along stone until it came to rest next to Diamond's prone body.

"Leave it!" Silver commanded as Nitro bent to retrieve it.  Nitro left it for Silver, who pushed Jet away and pounced on the set.  He had known it since seeing it in the leader's hands.  It was his own duplication.

And what he had created, he could dispel.

Silver's fingers touched the box and lifted it from its resting place, and the wood, metal and circuitry dissipated to nothing in the space of a thought.

The box was no more.

~~~

By the time Sapphire caught up with Lead, it was over.  Silver had dealt with the weapon, Jet had fallen to her knees beside Diamond, and the Transient Being had surged back to its feet, the motion so swift it left a lingering blur on her retina.  Without a word, their enemy retreated around the corner, probably heading for the nearby chamber: the one with the gateway and Mercury.

Steel was helping Lead up, the broad Specialist groaning and chuckling and amiably complaining about running into a block of concrete.

It took a moment to process the events, then Sapphire organised her priorities and joined Jet beside Diamond.  After diagnosing him with a single sweeping gaze, her eye caught Jet's and they moved together to capture his head with their hands.  It took only a moment before the conduit to their power was snatched at by the unconscious agent with the flailing desperation of a man in quicksand.  Then – thankfully – Diamond was healing himself.

Jet's emotions overcame her and she broke off, relying on Sapphire to finish the work.  As Sapphire regulated the healing to prevent Diamond drawing too much power, she noted with faint amusement and a self-deprecating sense of jealousy that it was Silver's shoulder Jet sought.

~~~

Work had taken a back seat when Mercury detected voices outside in the passageway.  He'd listened to his leader, and Nitro, but it was the shout of rage which had sent him scuttling back to the furthest corner of the chamber.  He'd drawn on his new powers in readiness, not all that willing to be reacquainted with the corridor of time but even less willing to lose his liberty.

After a series of bangs and thumps, his leader hurried into the room, spun and waved at the doorway.  A force field sprang up, sealing them into the chamber.  Mercury used the distraction to pretend that his presence in the corner had been for the purpose of collecting a specific tool.  Heading back to the gateway, he didn't look again at the leader.  The loss of the travel set had been immediately obvious.  More than that Mercury neither needed nor wanted to know.

It was just as well that his work was all but complete.

~~~

As his colleagues busied themselves with Diamond's treatment and Lead's recovery, Nitro watched the passageway beyond the corner.  He'd seen the Transient leader disappear into the working chamber.  He hadn't expected the force field, however, and frowned as he pondered this new obstacle.

The odds had improved in the time since his memories had first returned.  Then, they'd been three against four Transients.  Now they were seven against two: six, perhaps, given that Diamond would probably play no further part in this assignment.  In addition the enemy had lost its main weapon, though their own most effective countermeasure had also been used up when Steel had exhausted his super-frozen body.

Unfortunately, though they had the numbers, the two Transients they faced were still stronger and faster.  Most worryingly, their enemy might soon be able to withdraw and choose a different battlefield: one drawn from the dizzying prospect of anywhere and anywhen.  Transient power combined with Mercury's interdimensional talent would render the group virtually unassailable.  And Nitro knew full well that the first order of business his former leader would want to attend to was the complete destruction of the Hub.

Nitro returned to the group to see Sapphire alone in her healing efforts.  Lead gave a shout and Nitro turned to see the comparatively slight Steel wrenching the Specialist's arm back into its shoulder socket; collision with the Transient leader must have dislocated it.

When Steel turned around, his eyes met Nitro's.  Steel gave a grim nod of acknowledgement.  Nitro noticed that Steel was wearing his jacket.  He wasn't about to ask for it back; he wasn't the person present whose shirt was missing a sleeve.  But Steel caught the direction of Nitro's look, and stirred and shrugged the jacket off his shoulders to hand it over.  Nitro put it back on because he couldn't think of anything else to say or do.

He tuned in on Jet's murmured conversation with Silver, learning that Silver had undone his own work when holding his duplication.  A small victory, but Nitro was thankful he would never again face that slim and deadly box.

Sapphire's voice caught his attention.  He looked her way to see Diamond's eyes opened and glancing around.

"He's in no immediate danger now, but he won't be mobile for a few days," she said.  "He's vulnerable here.  Someone should take him back to the Hub.  They can take Topaz too."  Her eyes were on Lead, who was still rubbing his shoulder with a pained expression.

"Me?" Lead asked.  "I am not leaving!  Sapphire, you need me here."

"I need Diamond back at the Hub so his spine can heal.  I need Topaz there so she is placed in a cell at the earliest opportunity.  There is only one person here who is insulated enough to resist the cold currently in Topaz."

"But if Lead touches her, he'll warm her up again.  Like he does for Steel," Silver pointed out.

Nitro shook his head at this, even as Sapphire answered.  "Not unless he wants to."

"That's right," Lead acceded, "but I'm still more useful here.  Topaz can stay put – let Jet take Diamond back, or even you."

Nitro's attention was caught by Steel, who was gazing at his partner with an unreadable expression.  When Steel stepped beside Sapphire and looked to Lead, it seemed as though they had spent their lives presenting a united front.

"Sapphire is right," Steel said.  "You've already kept this mission alive for us.  You've certainly kept me alive for _it_.  Your strength won't help us defeat them now."  His shoulders went back and his gaze held steady.  Nitro had seen this pose before and only once witnessed the recipient walk away the victor.

Lead looked defiant for a moment longer, then his face cracked into a smile and the massive Specialist let out a chuckle that sounded indulgent and affectionate.  "All right, Steel," he said.  "All right, then.  You win."  He looked over at Nitro.  "Can you take me back to Topaz?"

Nitro nodded.  As he retreated, Steel's curt, commanding tone resounded behind him.

"Right, then, Silver – let's you and I take a look at this barrier."

~~~

"How long?"

The tone of the Transient leader's question left Mercury in no doubt that the game was up.  The loss of their weapon; the barrier across the doorway; the panic in the Transient's voice: it all indicated that they were no longer in a position to confront their foes.

Mercury fumbled as he configured the final module, haste hampering his usually nimble fingers.  Haste, and perhaps a shade of anger: they were Transient Beings, time's own Transients.  A smattering of agents from the thrice-damned Hub should _never_ have been able to stand in their way.

"A few minutes," he replied, preparing himself for the demand that it should be sooner.  How could it be sooner?  He had one pair of hands and a finite number of tasks.  It wasn't as though he could simply wave a wand.

But the Transient surprised him.  "Very well.  I can hold them off until then."

The leader took up a position several paces into the room, watching through the barely transparent blue force field.  Unable to spare any time and thought to their defences, Mercury continued with his work.

~~~

Silver walked alongside Steel as they approached the blue barrier.  Despite Steel's recent freezing – and whatever else he'd endured – he seemed in remarkably good shape.  Even his tousled hair, dirt-streaked face and torn shirt gave him a roguish rather than a defeated appearance.

No doubt an appearance that Jet and Sapphire would find stimulating...

Silver frowned at the direction of his thoughts.  They were inappropriate and misplaced.  The trouble was, he'd always been envious of Steel, however laughable that might seem to some.  Silver was smooth where Steel was roughened.  He could speak with charm while Steel sometimes struggled to form a civil sentence.  In all departments that should have mattered Silver was the better prospect, and yet for some reason Steel remained the focus of Sapphire's sincerest feelings.

Jet had found Steel rather appealing too.  For some reason that thought had now become intolerable.  _'Damn it, concentrate!'_   Silver bit his lip and asked himself, not for the first time, what it was about Steel that brought out the very worst in him.

Maybe he'd work it out, in time.  For now, there was one thing Silver could not put off saying any longer.  Once they'd defined some distance from the rest of the group, Silver reached and tugged Steel to a halt.  Steel looked at him, surprised and impatient.  Silver covered his unease by checking the alignment of his shirt cuffs beneath his jacket sleeves.

"Silver?" Steel prompted.

Silver met his colleague's eyes.  "Look, I don't know the ins and outs of what you and Sapphire have experienced here..."  Silver looked for a flicker of reaction, but Steel remained neutral.  Granite.  "Yes.  Anyway, I know that you probably think I let you down.  I let you down very badly, giving you that faulty device in the café."  He sniffed and frowned down at his shoes.  "You and Sapphire must have felt deeply betrayed by my actions."

To Silver's bewilderment, Steel smiled a dark smile.  "You'd be surprised, Silver, but it had actually slipped my mind up until now."

"Slipped your mind?"  Silver felt strangely offended.  "But it was my fault that you–"

"All right, it was your fault.  Now you can either explain, if you feel you must, or we can get on with investigating this barrier.  Which is it?"

Steel's experiences had clearly done nothing to improve his courtesy.  Silver explained as briefly as he could about what had happened with Mercury on the Hub.  When he'd finished, Steel shook his head in what looked like sympathy and reached a hand to touch Silver on the arm in condolence.  The gesture was abrupt and self-conscious, but it seemed genuine.

"I'm sorry," Steel said.  "Sorry you had to go through that."  He fell silent and turned away to examine the doorway.

Silver did the same, feeling a little lighter in spirits than he had two minutes earlier.  This brief exchange had been worthwhile.  Now he only needed to find the opportunity to explain himself to Sapphire too.

~~~

Leaving Jet with the fully conscious but immobile Diamond, Sapphire was drawn to her partner's side.  She paused, though, when she saw Steel in some kind of conversation with Silver.  She was unable to help herself as she listened in and heard Silver's explanation for the events that had truly happened in the café: events that were only gradually gaining clarity in her memories, following the false traumas that had overwritten them for a while.

She smiled when she saw Steel's awkward attempt at comfort.  But when the two men turned back to the glowing doorway, Steel's voice sounded in her head.  She jumped in alarm, so unexpected was the sound after days and days of lonely silence.

[Are you going to gawp all day or will you come and give us a hand?]

The words were for her alone; Silver was unaware of the communication.  Sapphire's cheeks coloured as she moved forward.  Steel met her eyes, just a glint of one-upmanship in his expression, but the smile she offered in return felt a little half-hearted.  There was still so much to do, and she was so tired and so broken; she needed quiet time to think.  She absolutely did _not_ need yet another showdown with their enemies.

Silver's voice broke in to her gloom.

"Ah, Sapphire," he said.  "You look wonderful.  What do they call that?  Cumbrian-ruin chic?"

"This season's collection," Sapphire agreed, joining in out of habit.  "These days everyone wants to look as though they've been sleeping on a pallet in the cell of an abandoned mental hospital."

"No need to point out how spectacularly you pull it off," Silver said smoothly.  A small sigh.  "Did I tell you how lovely it is to see you in one piece?  Or did we take that as read?"

She arched an eyebrow at Silver, though such familiar sweet-talk was warming.  _This_ was definitely no interloper.  Silver was charming and urbane but never predatory; that was where the Transient had got it wrong.

"Silver," came Steel's predictable warning, before Sapphire could respond.

"Ah.  Yes.  As read.  Right you are."

Sapphire found herself sharing a smile with Silver, but she wasn't prepared for the rush of pain she sensed in Steel as she did so.  Her partner pushed it to one side an instant later.  By the expression on his face when she turned to look at him, he regretted his reaction.

What horrors had they shown him?

"I can't do a thing with this barrier," Silver was saying, oblivious to the undercurrents between her and Steel.  "It isn't a machine.  It has no circuitry, no components.  It's just force – pure Transient force.  I couldn't break through this in a month of Sundays."  Sapphire watched Steel frown at the news, but Silver mistook the reaction.  "Oh, just an Earth expression.  Means a long, long time."

Sapphire considered their options.  "Nitro?" she suggested to her partner.  "He still has access to the power of the Transients, does he not?"

Steel looked helpless for a moment, then he shook his head.  "No.  I mean, yes, he does, but that isn't the best solution here.  For a start, I'd consider anything else before asking Nitro to touch Transient power again.  For seconds, he won't be as strong as the leader and Mercury combined.  No, I don't think there is any way through this doorway for us."

"We have to stop them," Silver protested.  "We have to try."

"And we will," Steel agreed.  "Which is why I want to know if this barrier covers the doorway alone or the whole room."

~~~

Lead had remained silent as Nitro had led him back to Sapphire's cell, but as soon as Lead hoisted the comatose Topaz over his shoulder and turned to make his way back to the group, he started to talk.

"A hundred years, huh?" was his opening gambit.

Nitro wondered whether his colleagues would ever lose this fascination with his undercover tenure.  "A hundred years," he agreed, matching his pace to the slower, steadier speed Lead now managed.  "Right up until about a couple of hours ago."  Memories of all the atrocities committed during his hundred years of Transience were already shouting to make themselves heard.  Nitro wanted so much to forget.

"So you were still pretending to be on their side when Sapphire and Steel were brought here?"

Now the real questions started.  "Yes.  I was still Transient when they arrived," Nitro said.  "But I wasn't pretending.  I'd just...temporarily forgotten where my loyalty truly lies."

"Right.  Got it."  Lead shot him a sideways look.  "Want to tell me what the Transients did to our friends?"

Nitro wasn't sure he deserved being included in the friendship.  Not after all that had happened.  "I don't think it's for me to say," he replied awkwardly.  "It would feel like...gossip."  Noticing that Lead was far from satisfied with this response, he went on, "Let's just say – the Transient leader is skilled with mind manipulation.  It applied this skill to our friends."

Lead was silent for a moment.  "In that case," he replied, "you're absolutely right.  It is none of my business."  Pausing in the passage to hoist Topaz into a more comfortable position, he added, "Makes me wish I could stay.  Right now I want to be the one to destroy that monster."

~~~

Over the last few days, Sapphire had become very familiar with the taint of Transient power.  It had blocked her every attempt to draw on her own talents; it had always shimmered in the air of her cell when Topaz had been present.  She knew its colour and its taste and its smell.  She knew its corruption.

She now walked the external perimeter of the chamber where Mercury's gateway neared completion.  She traced the walls of the corridors, into the room beyond.  On no occasion did she sense the continuation of the doorway's force field.

Assured by her findings, she turned and lifted her head to see Steel ready for her report.  "Only the doorway," she said.

Steel nodded his understanding.  "Then we can 'port in," he stated.

Ready for this suggestion, Sapphire played devil's advocate.  "This won't be like Mullrine's house," she reminded him.  "We aren't the only ones able to teleport, here."

"I know," he said.  "In fact we're up against an enemy with the skill to manipulate the usual travelling dimensions and snatch us out of existence."

"As long as you're aware," she said dryly.  She hurried after Steel as he led the way back to Diamond.  "You realise we're both exhausted?  It will be dangerous."

"I know that too."

"And what are we going to do when we're inside?  Tell them to stop or you'll jolly well take their names?  Steel, we need some kind of strategy."

Steel spun, his face radiating determination.  Sapphire stopped just short of running into him and regarded him with some residual caution.  Amazingly, her partner smiled and arched his brows in that helpless expression that few others had ever seen.

"I know.  It's forming.  I'm getting there."  Steel drew a shaken breath.  "I have missed you," he murmured, so low that only she could hear.

Sapphire opened her mouth to respond in kind, then she clamped her lips shut again.  Steel held her gaze for a moment longer before dropping his eyes and turning away.   He was approaching the others by the time Sapphire was able to whisper her reciprocation.

~~~

For days Mercury's cycle had consisted of extended periods of intensive work punctuated by brief rests.  He stood still for a moment after the final module was complete, staring at his work without really seeing it, barely able to comprehend that it was complete.  He let his eyes close and watched equations play over the shuttered lids, confirming his calculations, then he examined his circuitry again.

One check.  Another.  The leader would allow no time to test, so he had to verify his work right now.  Mercury assured himself that the circuitry of the gateway provided the same functionality which had been embedded within the travel set.  There was no problem that he could see.

"It's done."  His voice sounded strained in the confines of the working chamber.

The leader left its post at the door and strode up to the gateway.  "Is it active?" it asked, sweeping its gaze greedily over the machine.

Mercury waved a hand over a sensor and smiled as light flickered through cables and across webs of spun fibre.  "It is now," he confirmed, pride creeping into his tone.  The losses may have been extensive but the goal had been achieved.  No more restrictions.  He stepped on to the plinth, admiring his creation.  "I don't think I'll look any different when I step out the other side, but I know I'll be different up here."  He tapped the side of his head and drew a deep breath, preparing for his moment.

A hand dropped on to his shoulder, though when Mercury spun around the Transient remained several paces away.  His leader's head shook in denial.

"It should be me," the Transient insisted, and motioned Mercury to move out of the way.

~~~

Nitro guided Lead back to the small group to find all his colleagues in conference around Diamond.  A space was cleared next to the paralysed agent as they drew near.  Lead deposited Topaz nearby, taking care that her frozen form did not touch any of the others.  Nothing was said as Lead hunkered down between the two bodies.  Sharing plans with him would no longer serve a purpose.

Lead met Sapphire's eyes, then Steel's.  "Good luck," he offered, then reached a hand to hold on to Topaz's shoulder and nodded at Diamond.  Mute for the time being, Diamond broadcast his own best wishes then drew on his power.  The three faded.

As they left, Nitro wondered how it would feel when it was his turn to return to the Hub.  Before, travelling homeward had been like snapping a stretched elastic band back into its normal state.  Would he feel that way again?  Could the Hub be home once more?

But there was still a job to do.  Nitro turned to Steel in readiness.

"We could do with a diagram of the room," Steel said.

"Allow me," Silver offered, fishing his laser pen out of a pocket and waving his hand over an imaginary flat surface.  He activated the pen and drew the dimensions of the room in thin air, showing the door.

"Good.  Where is the machine?" asked Steel.  Nitro pointed and Silver drew it in according to Nitro's specification.  "Anything else?"

"Mercury's workbench is in this corner."  Nitro pointed again.  "There's a raised pallet next to it where Mercury rested.  I can't tell you where the two Transients will be."

Steel nodded then looked around, his gaze taking in the remainder of their group.  Nitro put aside his personal difficulties in adjusting and waited.

"Our target is the gateway," Steel announced.  "Without it, the Transients can only escape back into the past, and once there they no longer have the means to return to the present."  Nitro nodded in agreement, though all eyes were on Steel.  "Unfortunately, the two in there are stronger than all of us combined, so we're going to use the only advantage we have left.  Numbers."

Nitro's heart began to beat a little faster as he realised that the end game was upon them.

Silver said, "Numbers?"

Steel nodded.  "We all have skills and we're about to make them count.  We're going to play a game of distractions."

~~~

As Lead arrived in the central chamber on the Hub, he glanced at Diamond to see the agent's eyes already glassy with power.  The authority figures were no doubt desperate for a status report.

The few agents who had remained on hand for news backed away at his warning gesture, and he picked Topaz up.

There was only one place suitable for her now.  Lead plodded out of the chamber and began to make his way to the cells.

~~~

Sapphire arrived right on the button, Jet appearing a couple of steps away.  She looked to the gateway in the diagonally opposite corner where it faced the door.  The Transient leader was on the plinth, about to step through the arch.  Mercury stood beside the device.  He looked up at the distant motion and his eyes widened.

Even as Mercury cried out a warning to his associate, Sapphire linked her capacity for power with Jet, and together they created a time-loop local to the plinth.  In a swift rotation of motion, the Transient leader took a step towards the arch before being jerked back to its starting position.

Even at double-strength, the loop wouldn't hold a Transient being for long.  Hopefully it wouldn't need to.

Mercury was already reacting to this assault.  He hadn't been close enough to his leader to be snagged within the loop; he stepped out from behind the gateway to counterattack.  Sapphire knew she and Jet were vulnerable, but she ignored the cold blue fire in Mercury's eyes and hoped Silver would be as accurate in his 'port as they'd been.

He was.

Less accustomed to using the travelling dimensions, Silver stumbled as he appeared in the chamber, then he found his feet and steadied himself against the wall.  He stepped up to the gateway and called out before Mercury reached Sapphire.

"Ah, Mercury, I was hoping to see you again."  There was a strain underlying Silver's tone.  Sapphire sympathised with her old friend's stress levels as he came face to face with the person who had violated his mind.  "Now, this gateway.  Do tell me, one Technician to another – how does it work?"

Mercury dismissed Sapphire and Jet in favour of more immediate concerns, since Silver was dangerously close to the gateway.  The turncoat stalked back to his machine.  Sapphire breathed her relief and concentrated on keeping the leader from passing through the arch.

"For instance," Silver went on, easing himself around the plinth, skirting the edges of the time-loop, trying to keep the maximum distance between himself and Mercury.  "What does this connector do?"

The part of Sapphire's mind which was not preoccupied with the time-loop watched as Silver whipped a finger out and tugged the connector free.  Mercury scrambled to retrieve and reconnect it as Silver began to dance around the plinth, repeating this mischief wherever he could.

She would have smiled in satisfaction, but the loop was already weakening and the effort to maintain it was beginning to tire her.  Trapping a Transient, so steeped in temporal power, was not the same as trapping easier prey.  She shot a glance over at Jet and saw that her companion was struggling too.

_'Hurry...'_

Nitro's turn.  He materialised in front of the doorway.  The 'ports were becoming more dangerous, because the safe space available to them was diminishing.  Trust Steel to allow himself to 'port last, when the danger was greatest.

She watched as Nitro approached the gateway, timing his steps to arrive alongside Silver.  Mercury was still chasing, but stopped when Nitro positioned himself between them.  On the other side of the arch the Transient leader still flickered back and forth, fury in its eyes.

Nitro raised his hands.  Just as the loop was becoming too much for Sapphire to hold on to, Nitro put his talented fingers to good use:

He froze the machine.

First one module then another frosted over.  Ice crept along connectors, glittering in the harsh, unnatural light.  As the metal and fibres expanded and contracted, the air was filled with an eerie creaking.  Mercury's attention was wrenched away from the two agents and he looked at his creation with horror.

The time-loop no longer required Sapphire's attention, caught as it was in the frozen circuitry and energy fields of the gateway.  She let it go, hoping it would hold fast within the framework of absolute coldness.  The plan had worked; the Transient leader remained captured – temporarily at least – in its confines.  Exhausted, Sapphire still managed to reach out an arm to Jet as her companion looked ready to crumple.  They supported each other, their eyes now fully observing this final play.

Transient blue fired up again in Mercury's eyes.  He turned from the frozen machinery and rounded on Nitro.  "You snivelling traitor!" he accused, apparently unaware of the irony in his words.  "All you've done is postpone the inevitable!"  Silver moved, perhaps trying to offer a distraction, but a swipe from Mercury's arm threw Nitro halfway to the door.  Nitro lay still where he landed, but Sapphire couldn't go to him while Mercury remained at large.

Silver had tried to skirt the now-useless gateway in order to place it between himself and Mercury, but Mercury moved faster.  Silver kept moving, backing up, eyes on their enemy.

"Silver!" Sapphire called in warning.  Silver was almost at the exact place where–

Steel materialised a second early and grasped Silver's shoulders.  In other circumstances Sapphire would have laughed at the way Silver yelped at the unexpected touch.  Pushing Silver aside, Steel faced Mercury.  If anything, the blue in Mercury's eyes burned more fiercely still.

It seemed they'd run out of moves to make.  Mercury stood between Steel and the device.  Sapphire watched her partner shifting his gaze between the frozen gateway and their enemy, wondering how the final part of the plan would now be possible.  They'd run out of distractions, used up all the numbers–

The light bulb blinked out for a couple of seconds.

When light returned to the chamber, they were all looking about in confusion: all except Silver, whose expression told Sapphire exactly who had instigated the blackout.  Clever.

Steel cottoned on without delay and used the distraction to 'port beyond Mercury to a clear space next to the gateway.  Sapphire watched as her partner set his jaw in determination and drew his fist backwards.  She knew he was strong, just as she now knew that a secret part of her feared that strength.  But would he be strong enough to finish the job?

Mercury finally caught up and returned his attention to the gateway.  When Steel's punch exploded outwards from his body, Mercury screamed in denial.  The super-frozen structure of the gateway shattered under the force of the blow, components and cables splintering apart.

Steel, as it turned out, was indeed strong enough.

As the gateway collapsed, the energy field which had trapped the Transient leader surged and exploded.  Sapphire saw the man fade from view, in the same way the earlier victims of the original box had done.  As the echoes of this destruction began to fade, the final thing that Sapphire became aware of was a ferocious, agonising pain in her hand.

She glanced down at it curiously, before realising it wasn't _her_ hand which was the source of the pain.  So she stepped away from Jet and moved over to Steel.  Blood covered her partner's knuckles, and he wiped it distractedly on the fabric of his already ruined shirt.

He'd done it.  They had all done it.  The gateway was destroyed.

"You will die for that."

Mercury.  There was still Mercury.  The turncoat stepped over the wreckage of his masterwork and threatened Steel, madness mixing with the power in his eyes.

"Worth it," Steel said sincerely.  He made no attempt to evade Mercury's threatening approach.  He honestly believed what he said, too; he was ready to face destruction, knowing that the Transients were restricted once more.

Sapphire felt herself sharing her terror, transmitting to Steel a fundamental despair that things should finish like this.  But she was damned if she was moving away.  Her place was at Steel's side: shoulder to shoulder.

"Mercury!"

But it seemed that there were still more distractions in store.  Silver had armed himself with one of Mercury's tools from the workbench: a probe of slim, metallic design.  The turncoat spun around and faced Silver, sneering in derision as he noted what must have seemed like rather a puny weapon.  Silver appeared unperturbed and, as though about to present a conjuring trick to a captivated audience, he whipped out a handkerchief and quickly buffed the metal, then held it vertically and pressed it between the flat of his palms into what seemed like nothing.  Just as Mercury's patience seemed to snap and he began to advance on Silver, Sapphire watched Silver bring his cupped hands to his mouth and blow, spraying a fine metallic dust into Mercury's face.  The turncoat scraped at his eyes, spinning away.

All well and good, but how could they use this final upper-hand-moment?  Because it wouldn't last more than a few seconds.

A groaning from beside the doorway reminded Sapphire of the fallen Nitro.  She saw that he'd picked himself up, and had now taken note of the blinded Mercury.  Staggering, Nitro made his way across the room, a single finger stretched before him.  As Mercury raised his head and peered through watering eyes at the sound of footsteps, Nitro reached for the turncoat's face and made a single contact with the tip of his finger in the centre of Mercury's forehead.

There was a small flash.  Mercury crumpled to the floor.  An odd kind of peace pervaded the cluttered battleground: a quietness broken by panted breaths, murmurs of pain and the stray crackles of broken technology.

It was Silver who finally asked the question.  "Um – what did you just do to him, Nitro?"

Nitro turned to survey them all in turn, his slumped shoulders reminding Sapphire that she wasn't the only one desperate for some rest.  "I made him forget," Nitro told them.  "Just like I forgot a hundred years ago.  I froze Mercury's newest memories.  The ones which told him how to use Transient power."

"Ingenious," Silver returned, impressed.

"We need to get him back to the Hub," Steel said, his eyes meeting Jet's and asking for help.  As Jet moved to Mercury's side, Sapphire noted that Silver went to assist.  Jet and Silver shared a look and a touch.  This time the ripple of self-deprecating envy was not Sapphire's alone, and she looked with shock to see Steel turning to her with the same expression.

"What happened to the leader?" Nitro was asking.  "Is it destroyed?"

Silver looked up and shook his head.  "No.  My guess is that Mercury configured the gateway a little too exactly like the travel set.  Which means it was still set for the Triassic period.  Oh, it wouldn't have mattered if they'd stepped through it – they could have gone wherever and whenever they wanted from there.  But as the field was destroyed without the Transient completing its step through the arch, I can only imagine it snapped to its default location, taking the Transient Being with it."

"So they're all trapped in the past again?" Steel asked.  "The leader, and the two from the service station."

"Let's hope so," Silver replied, before fading out of the chamber with Jet and Mercury.

"Time to go...home?" Nitro asked.

Sapphire caught his hesitation and sympathised.  She offered a reassuring nod and watched him fade.

Which left her alone with Steel for the first time since their abduction from the café.

Her partner busied himself with dragging a toe through the shattered remains of the gateway as though looking for something.  His body language cried out with uncertainty.  Sapphire searched for the right words, the words which would reassure both of them that it was over, that they were together again, that nothing had changed.

But things _had_ changed.  Things would probably never be the same, ever again.

~~~


	11. Epilogue

Sapphire sat alone in her retreat.  Her immediate needs had been addressed.  Physically she looked much better than the dishevelled figure who had faced down Transient Beings and lived to tell the tale.

She'd slept for a long time.  Her neck no longer hurt her.

The aftermath of this traumatic assignment had been resolved.  She'd made her report and checked that Topaz and Mercury were securely incarcerated.  When she'd left the central chamber, Silver had tried to follow her.  Sapphire had declined his company as gently as possible.  She'd needed to be alone.

Steel hadn't tried to follow.  She hadn't been sure whether to feel grateful or hurt, but gratitude had won in the end.

Now she'd recovered sufficiently to begin to think.  All the events of recent days returned to haunt her.  She wondered about her partner's experiences and realised that she already had a good idea of the false images he had been shown: that stab of hurt as Silver had flirted with her had been, in retrospect, revealing.

Sapphire tried very hard to process all that had happened with a degree of pragmatism.  She formed questions in her mind and tried to answer them.  In particular she asked herself whether she could continue to work alongside a man she feared.

Each time the question appeared, Sapphire tried to dismiss it.  Fear Steel?  They'd worked together for more than a hundred years.  Why now, after all that time, should their partnership become coloured by apprehension?

Yet each time she attempted to discard the idea, the nightmare returned.  She was forced to admit that the images she had seen were the direct product of her own mind.  The memories might have been false, might have been planted, but the seed of fear had already existed for the Transient Being to exploit.

She mused on the questions and the nightmare for hours.  She slept again, but this time she was not sufficiently exhausted for the sleep to be dreamless.  Trapped by her own treacherous thoughts, she wondered where she might turn for help.  It didn't take long to realise that the only individual she'd ever felt fully able to trust with such intimacies was the one individual to whom she could not possibly speak about them.

In need of a distraction, Sapphire removed the defences she'd placed around her retreat in order to check on Diamond's progress.  The report which came back lifted her spirits; Diamond was healing quickly.  Immediately after she'd received this news, her partner reached her.

[Sapphire?]

Even his mental voice sounded uncertain.  Sapphire swallowed her own nervousness and cursed his sense of timing.  A moment longer and the defences around her retreat would have been in place once more; she would have been unreachable.

[Steel,] she acknowledged, her own tone guarded.

[Are you all right?  I've been trying to contact you.]

[I'm all right.  I needed some time.]

[Yes.]

Communications went silent.  Sapphire sensed Steel's helplessness through their link.  Finally, his voice came through again.

[Sapphire, you have me at a disadvantage.]

[Disadvantage?]  For a moment Sapphire's confusion outweighed her anxiety.

[Yes.  You know what they made me see.  How they made me doubt you.  Or you must have some idea, at least.  But the reverse is not true.  I don't even have a vague idea.]

What could she say to that?  He was quite right.  Her partner was asking her to trust him.

Sapphire panicked.  [Not now, Steel.  Please.]

She severed the communication and replaced the protections around her retreat.  Then she sank to her knees and hid her face from the empty room.

~~~

When, two days later, the authority bypassed her defences and asked her how she fared, Sapphire knew her self-imposed isolation was drawing attention.  Taking a metaphoric deep breath she left the confines of her retreat and began to socialise again.

Silver invited her to a small bridge party, and she accepted.  Sapphire found that, for a short time at least, her dark mood was lightened in frivolity and familiar jests.  She found herself watching the flirtatious interaction between Jet and Silver, and was visited by another twinge of envy, though this time her feelings dwelt less on the way Silver lavished his charismatic attention on another and more on the way that some could find such things so _easy_.  So natural.  Even after everything that had happened.

It didn't seem fair, somehow.

Later in the evening she stepped aside from the table for a while, enjoying a glass of the sparkling wine Silver had acquired especially for the occasion.  Her dashing host joined her and led her out to the terrace at the back of his retreat, where the refracted colours of their home dimension shifted like a kaleidoscope.

"It's a lovely view, isn't it?" he said.

Sapphire turned to look at Silver, suspicions aroused.  She had stood here alongside him on numerous occasions in the past.  Never before had he made such a banal comment.

"Lovely view?" she repeated, first incredulous and then derisive.  Silver looked suitably abashed.  "All right.  Out with it!"

Silver's question was gently voiced, but immediate and to the point.  "Sapphire, why won't you see Steel?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, annoyance masking her disconcertion.  "I'm right here.  I'm not exactly in hiding."

"I realise that, but it counts for nothing with Steel," Silver said, frowning into the distance.  "He's been shut in his retreat for days.  No one's seen him–"

"Hardly unusual, for Steel."

"–and the only communications we've had are all these-these desperately neutral enquiries regarding _your_ welfare."  Silver took Sapphire's hand and peered into her eyes.  "He's waiting for you to go to him.  I think it's time you saw him.  The longer you wait, the harder it will be."

"Silver, you have no idea..." she began, hating the way all the confusing feelings welled up within.  Sapphire found she couldn't continue.  She made her excuses, handing Silver the crystal flute still half-filled with wine.  She almost ran all the way back to her retreat.

This unsatisfactory state of affairs remained unresolved when the next briefing came through.  Confusion or no, she still had a partner, and they were still Operators, and it was time to go back to work.

~~~

She left the hotel, following the tensely held posture of her partner.  Steel paced into the cool evening air, the sea breeze ruffling his hair, until he reached a break in the promenade railings and walked down some steps to the rocky beach below.

"Destroy the music," came his swift instruction as Sapphire joined him.  She nodded agreement, tearing the paper into small pieces to let the wind take them seaward.  She was about to make some bland comment about how she wished all assignments could be so readily resolved, when Steel exploded.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" he raged.  "Anything could have been the trigger in a place like that – anything!  A room full of ticking time-bombs, and you chose to dither about on the organ – as though you were at one of your wretched parties rather than on assignment!"

Sapphire swallowed her immediate rebuttal and frowned.  Steel was right.  She'd let her dark mood distract her from the job in hand.  She'd placed herself in unnecessary danger.

"You could have been killed," Steel barked at her.  "You could have got _me_ killed.  It was completely irresponsible!"

"It was a mistake," she admitted.  "But a fortunate one.  We could have spent hours looking for the trigger–"

"Hours don't matter!" Steel shouted.  "Better to work for hours with due regard to safety than to go-to go steaming in and forget that the forces we're fighting have the power to destroy both of us _and_ all the life on this planet."

"Since when have you prioritised safety?" Sapphire countered, as steadily as she could.  She thought of a dozen instances where Steel had taken his own unnecessary risks.  And he'd happily risked her, before now.  Over and over, he'd pushed her powers beyond sensible levels.

And now, suddenly, he was Mr. Slow-and-Steady?

"Since now!" Steel spat.  "And there is a difference between calculated risk-taking and sloppy recklessness!"

He stepped closer, ready to continue his tirade, his eyes full of fury which – Sapphire sensed – was not wholly provoked by her admittedly thoughtless actions in the hotel.  Steel looked almost mindless with rage.  She took an involuntary step backwards, wary of the clamour of nightmare images, memories of madness and violence.

Something in her expression, or perhaps through their link, made Steel stop short, but it was too late.  Stumbling backwards, away from her partner, Sapphire slipped on a patch of seaweed and fell to the rocks, landing awkwardly.  The wind was knocked out of her and she cried out in surprised pain, before remembering the danger she was in and attempting to scrabble further away.

Steel did not move.  Against the night sky, his figure was imposing.  His expression had changed, however.  Replacing his anger was a look of shock: a look which verged on horror.  They held that pose for long, drawn out seconds, both of them seemingly afraid to move or to look elsewhere.

Then Steel stepped closer, holding out a tentative hand to help her up.  Sapphire knew she'd been found out, but even as her mind advised her to take the proffered hand and shrug the incident off, her reflexes betrayed her.

"No!" she gasped as the hand drew nearer.  She scrambled further away.  Her vulnerability and her comparative physical weakness seemed so clear now, and the pain where she'd fallen was throbbing, and she wanted to think clearly enough to form a 'port back to the Hub only her mind was swamped with horrors and fears and frustration.

Although she hated herself for it, tears formed in her eyes.

Steel straightened up again and stumbled back.  His expression of shock had turned to a desperate disbelief.  "You're frightened of me," he said in a flat tone.

When she couldn't answer, he looked away, turning to the barely visible shoreline.

"How _can_ you be–?"  Steel stopped abruptly, then tried again.  His voice was quavering.  "Sapphire, you must know that I–"  Once again he couldn't complete the sentence.  At last he looked to where she still half-lay on the stones, watching him, and he said gruffly, "I'm sorry I lost my temper."

Then her partner turned and walked away along the beach, his dark clothing soon rendering him invisible.

Slowly, Sapphire pulled herself into a sitting position.  She fussed with her hair, to little avail, and glanced down at her attire.  Her stockings were laddered; it seemed that laddering stockings was part and parcel of the job these days.  Her arm was sore and she examined it, noting the bruises and some grazing.  Gathering herself, she tried to concentrate enough to draw power to heal this small injury.

But she couldn't.  She couldn't think straight.  Her throat hurt like someone had tried to crush the very life out of her.

Giving up, she sat with her head in her hands.  And for the first time since Cumbria she began, properly, to cry.

~~~

Later, when the tears had dried and the grazing was healed, Sapphire stood and straightened her dress.  Steel was still nearby.  She could sense his presence, though the link between them was narrowed with their mutual withdrawal.

She sighed, long and weary.  The emotional release had brought with it tiredness, but a kind of composure too.

It was a beautiful night.  The distant sound of the continuing party at the hotel was carried on gusts of wind scented with brine.  The sky was cloudless and the moon almost full.  Sapphire sighed again, all tired unhappiness, and she began to pick her way along the beach in Steel's direction.

She could have turned her back.  She could have returned to the Hub and asked for a different partner.  It had been done before and would no doubt happen again.  But this was _Steel_.  And she and Steel were good together.  They made a difference.  Sapphire couldn't simply walk away.

When she caught up with him he was staring out across the bay, his hands buried in the pockets of his overcoat.  He didn't turn to acknowledge her presence, though Sapphire knew he was aware of it.  His shoulders stiffened and tension blossomed in his profile.

She knew she should speak but didn't know how to start.

Her partner surprised her by doing so himself.  She felt the effort he expended just to make his voice as gentle as possible.

"Back there, in that godforsaken old hospital, I thought I'd lost you," he said.  "Completely."

Their link was swelling again with emotion.  Her companion was such an intense man.  She made a conscious attempt to control the jumping nerves inside her.

"I know," she whispered in return.

"But in the last days," he went on, huddling further into his coat, "I've been thinking that I found you again there, only to lose you anyway."

Sapphire looked away, shaking her head.  There was too much to say and she couldn't speak.

"You know what I saw," Steel said.  He turned to her and she had to look at him.  There was self-disgust in his expression.  "You know what they used to hurt me."

Sapphire found her voice.  "I have an idea, yes," she replied awkwardly.  "It was a lie."

"A lie I remember only too vividly."  He pinched between his eyes, as if a very human headache were blossoming there.  "It's too late to hold back," Steel mused, apparently to himself.

The link they shared exploded with imagery, taking Sapphire quite by surprise.  Too startled to turn away from the pictures being sent, she was drawn into Steel's memories.  And once she started to watch them, she found she couldn't look away.  In the space of less than a minute she experienced her partner's worst nightmare and then participated in his attempted suicide.

When the memories left her and she returned to the dark, blustery beach, tears of empathy cascaded down her cheeks.  She remembered her uncertainty when leaving the Transient base, and recognised that her instinct had been correct: whatever happened in the future, it would be coloured by this.

It didn't matter about Silver; Silver's part in this was peripheral at best.  What mattered was Steel.  What mattered was the subtext of his confession: this heady cocktail of desire and dependence.  All that he felt for her.

She'd always known, of course.  Right from the start, when those disconcerting emotions had first appeared in both of their minds.  They'd been pushed aside, initially with irritation then later with real trepidation.  Sapphire couldn't have shared a link so intimate with her partner without their most intense feelings spilling over on occasion.

She almost laughed at herself as she finally understood how hard they'd always worked to avoid the issue.  And now it was out in the open.  Sapphire felt a momentary stab of anger that Steel had _needed_ her to taste his longing, that he couldn't have kept it to himself.  Knowing how Steel felt made it that much more difficult to evade the feelings she had in return, and in the context of their recent shared history Sapphire wasn't sure she would ever be ready to face them.

Steel had angled his face away from her.  She sensed his shame.  And of course, he had to sense her anger.  That was what happened when two agents shared a connection as potently honest as theirs.

Recognising this made her anger vanish.  "Oh, Steel," she sighed.

When he spoke, he spoke to the stars.  "I didn't think I could ever hurt more than that.  Than when I watched you and Silver in that wretched café."  His voice raised in volume and pitch as he choked back emotion.  "To know that you hated me, that you'd happily betray me to be free.  Free of me."  He dropped his head.  "Turns out...well.  The last few days have taught me otherwise.  Not having you with me.  Beside me.  Not hearing your thoughts in my head; knowing that you're so close to me that you might as well be the better part of myself."

He raised his gaze to meet her eyes and poured everything of himself into the look he gave her.

"Sapphire, it _hurts_."

Steel fell silent.  He had trusted her with his most intimate fear.  The implications of this would have to wait for later.  What mattered in the moment was trust, because without it they had nothing.

With a sense of resignation, Sapphire stepped closer and allowed herself a lingering look into her partner's troubled eyes.  The fury was long gone, of course.  Steel's anger always disappeared as quickly as it arrived; she knew that.  She'd always known, because she knew him.  She chewed at her lip.  Only the patient acceptance in Steel's expression gave her the strength to focus her thoughts.

The images returned with unsurprising ease.  They gathered momentum as they gained in clarity, and Sapphire shared the whole of her nightmare with Steel.  When the sequence climaxed with dream-Steel's final, murderous act, he spun away from her and staggered a few steps, shouting in denial.

Sapphire let the memories go and bent over, recovering her breath as though she'd been running.  When she looked up again, Steel stood aside, his hands held before his face.  He stared at them in horror.

Feeling oddly timid, she stepped closer.  When she'd closed the distance between them, Steel forced his gaze away from his hands and met her eyes.  There was such despair in his expression that nothing seemed quite so urgent as the need to offer comfort.  Sapphire reached to touch his hands, letting their fingers clasp.  Steel's expression drained of its abhorrence until only his exhaustion remained.

She felt exhausted too.

In the end, it was easy to drop her head to Steel's shoulder.  She pressed closer, put her arms around him, felt him return the embrace.  They held each other for a long time on the darkened, rocky beach.

"It was a lie," Steel murmured, at some point in the time that followed.

Of course it was.  Her darkest fear might have been exploited, just as Steel's had been, but neither nightmare was strong enough to bear examination.  She would never betray Steel.  He would never cause her harm.  Intellectually, she recognised these truths.

It would take a little longer to recognise them emotionally.  But it would happen, now.  They'd taken the first step.

There was far too much between them to do anything else.

~~~

On the Hub, a Specialist meandered through passages and chambers.  Those he passed hailed him heartily and he smiled and nodded in return.

He was a hero.  Everybody told him so.

He still felt like a traitor.

His wanderings took him to a place most shunned.  Nitro stood before the cell door for long minutes before turning around and almost nonchalantly leaning against it.  Slowly he let his legs buckle until he had slid all the way to the floor.  His head fell back to rest against the door and he could sense, just barely, the dull and numbing shroud within.

Mercury was inside.  Lucky, lucky Mercury.

Nitro gazed at his long, talented fingers.  With just one single digit, he had made Mercury forget.

He wished he could give himself the same absolution.

~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> This story was the very first novella-length piece I produced. For quite some time, my wonderful friend Eva hosted the story at her own website. Her collection of excellent stories has recently found a new home here:
> 
> [Eliann SleepingCat's fanfic site](http://www.sleepingcat.se)
> 
>  
> 
> 'Time's Transients' has undergone a bit of a polish in recent weeks, so that this revised version can now be archived here at AO3. While it is prone to some of the early issues which beset my writing - there are far too many POV characters, for instance - I have to admit that I remain fond of this story. It was the piece that convinced me I could do plots.
> 
> (We always remember our first time, do we not?)
> 
> Oh, and Jacqueline Pearce totally plays Topaz in the movie of this. In my brain.


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